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Hankinson v. State6/6/2002
Our recitation of the facts pertinent to the resolution of the issue raised in this appeal need only be very brief. Hankinson and Lester Poague got drunk on July 25, 2000. They decided to go to the business owned by Daryl Coast (Coast) and give him a beating, because of grievances against Coast, real or imagined, the details of which are not pertinent to this appeal and which Hankinson was unable to articulate in a manner that made much sense. After drinking most of the day, Hankinson and Poague went to Coast's place of business and broke in the door. Once inside, they looked for Coast because they wanted to "kick his ass." Because Coast was a much bigger man than Poague, Poague had armed himself with an axe handle from Hankinson's pickup truck. According to both Hankinson and Poague, Hankinson's main purpose in being there was to make sure his brother did not enter into the fight on Coast's side. Hankinson's brother was a good friend of Coast's. However, Coast was not at his business, so the two vandals scattered business papers and about two or three hundred pennies from a cash box onto the counter and the floor, poured fingernail polish on a credit card machine, and Hankinson defecated on the floor. As the two were leaving, Hankinson took a coffee can, which was used as an ashtray for the business (and the can apparently contained a few of the pennies which were strewn about the business), and threw it into the back of his pickup truck, along with the empty bottle of fingernail polish. Hankinson took those two items because he thought his fingerprints might be on them.
[ ] Hankinson subsequently was charged with burglary *fn4 with intent to commit aggravated assault and battery on the person of Coast, burglary with intent to commit larceny, based on the removal of the coffee can and some of the pennies, as well as the conspiracy charge described above.
[ ] The jury found Hankinson not guilty on the two burglary charges, but guilty of the conspiracy charge.
STANDARD OF REVIEW
[ ] The benchmark for review of sufficiency of the evidence claims is whether the evidence, when viewed in the light most favorable to the State, is such as to permit a reasonable trier of fact to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Statezny v. State, 2001 WY 22, , 18 P.3d 641, (Wyo. 2001). Moreover, we will not substitute our judgment for that of the jury. Rather, we determine whether a quorum of reasonable and rational individuals would, or even could, have found the essential elements of the crime were proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Saiz v. State, 2001 WY 76, , 30 P.3d 21, (Wyo. 2001).
DISCUSSION
[ ] The central thrust of Hankinson's appeal is that he was too drunk to have formed the specific intent to conspire with Poague in the firs t place and, to the extent they discussed a "plan" to beat up Coast using the axe handle, it did not rise to the level of a conspiracy, as that word is viewed in the context of the criminal law. Conspiracy is defined as follows in Black's Law Dictionary 305 (7th ed. 1999):
Conspiracy, n. An agreement by two or more persons to commit an unlawful act; a combination for an unlawful purpose. In criminal law, conspiracy is a separate offense from the crime that is the object of the conspiracy . . . .
"[Conspiracy is an] elastic, sprawling and pervasive offense, . . . so vague that it almost defies definition. Despite certain elementary and essential elements, it also, chameleon-like, takes on a special coloration from each of the many independent offenses on which it may be overlaid. It is always 'predominantly mental in composition' because it consists primarily of a meeting of minds and an intent." Krulewitch v. United St
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