Mogard v. City of Laramie9/24/2001
nt in finding the search and seizure constitutional, and he dismissed the notion of finding any greater protections in the state constitution. Saldana, 846 P.2d at 610-12. In a special concurrence, however, Justice Macy forcefully rejected "the idea that in the future we will blindly follow the United States Supreme Court's interpretation of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution when we interpret the Wyoming Constitution." Saldana, 846 P.2d at 621 (Macy, J., specially concurring). Perhaps even more forcefully, Justice Urbigkit issued a forty-page dissenting opinion, in which he dismissed the idea that state constitutional provisions necessarily were meant to mirror their federal counterparts. Id. at 624-64 (Urbigkit, J., dissenting). Finally, Justice Golden concurred, but identified an "analytical technique" whereby litigants could, in the future, present a separate state constitutional analysis. Id. at 621-24 (Golden, J., concurring).
[ ] Three years later, in a unanimous opinion, this Court rejected a separate state constitutional analysis of a search and seizure issue, but only because the "assertion, unaccompanied by authority or argument, is insufficient to persuade us to consider whether the Wyoming Constitution's Art. 1, § 4 should be independently interpreted as offering greater protection than its federal counterpart." Gronski v. State, 910 P.2d 561, 565 (Wyo. 1996). See also Guerra v. State, 897 P.2d 447, 451 (Wyo. 1995) (limiting the application of separate state constitutional analysis to the extent the appellant actually developed the analysis). Finally, in Vasquez v. State, 990 P.2d 476 (Wyo. 1999), the separate state constitutional analysis doctrine met up with an appellant prepared to utilize the analytical technique identified in Justice Golden's concurrence in Saldana. Vasquez represents a significant step in the development of state constitutional analysis in Wyoming, inasmuch as it finds the same to be "required unless a party desires to have an issue decided solely under the Federal Constitution." Vasquez, 990 P.2d at 485.
APPLYING THE SALDANA TEST
[ ] We should not lose focus of the limited issue before us. We determined in Wheeler, 705 P.2d at 863, that the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which reads as follows, does not create a right to counsel before a DWUI arrestee decides whether to take a chemical test:
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence. (Emphasis added.)
The question we now face is whether Wyo. Const. art. 1, § 10, which reads as follows, provides such a right:
In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right to defend in person and by counsel, to demand the nature and cause of the accusation, to have a copy thereof, to be confronted with the witnesses against him, to have compulsory process served for obtaining witnesses, and to a speedy trial, by an impartial jury of the county or district in which the offense is alleged to have been committed. When the location of the offense cannot be established with certainty, venue may be placed in the county or district where the corpus delecti [delicti] is found, or in any county or district in which the victim was transported. (Emphasis added.)
We will answer the questio
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