Summary 2009 WY 43

Summary of Decision issued March 25, 2009

Summaries are prepared by Law Librarians and are not official statements of the Wyoming Supreme Court.

Case Name: Colyer v. State, Dep’t of Transportation

Citation: 2009 WY 43

Docket Number: S-08-0183

Appeal from the District Court of Fremont County, the Honorable Norman E. Young, Judge.

Representing Appellant Colyer: Vance Countryman, PC, Lander, Wyoming.

Representing Appellee State: Bruce A. Salzburg, Attorney General; Robin Sessions Cooley, Deputy Attorney General; Douglas J. Moench, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Michael T. Kahler, Assistant Attorney General.

Facts/Discussion: Colyer’s driver’s license was suspended because he refused to submit to a chemical test of his blood alcohol content after a traffic stop. That suspension was affirmed after a contested case hearing and again after a petition for review was filed in the district court. The focal issue is whether the arrest was unlawful, which, if so, would negate the Appellant’s statutorily implied consent to chemical testing and would require reversal of the driver’s license suspension. The Court stated the dispositive issue was whether Colyer’s detention by a Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) officer on the Wind River Indian Reservation rendered unlawful the otherwise lawful arrest of him by a Fremont County deputy sheriff.

Colyer relied almost exclusively on Marshall v. State ex rel. DOT and United States v. Atwell. The State relied primarily upon Pogue v. Allison and United States v. Santiago.
The hearing examiner concluded that the BIA officer’s detention was not unlawful stating that he had jurisdiction to stop the vehicle and once he determined that Colyer was not Native American had the authority to detain him until the Sheriff’s Deputy arrived to take custody. Jurisdiction for the detention of Colyer was conferred on the BIA officer by the deputy sheriffs while on route to the scene and because the BIA officer had reasonable cause to believe a crime was occurring and that it involved an immediate threat of serious bodily injury or death. The Court was not comfortable with the hearing officer’s legal analysis stating that the “peace officer” to which reference is made in § 7-2-101 on its face does not include BIA officers, the incident did not involve extraterritorial authority because neither officer left his respective territorial jurisdiction and the reasoning of Santiago did not apply.
The Court noted this was not a unique question. It reviewed cases from courts around the country noting the decision in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe where the United State Supreme Court detailed the history of the congressional presumption that Indian tribes did not have criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians on reservations and then stated that the tribes are to promptly deliver up any non-Indian offender rather than try and punish him themselves. In Duro v. Reina, the United States Supreme Court stated that tribal officers may exercise their power to detain the offender and transport him to the proper authorities. Viewing the facts of the instant case in the context above, the Court concluded that nothing occurred in the detention of Colyer to render his arrest unlawful.

Conclusion: Colyer was lawfully detained by the BIA officer pending his lawful arrest by the deputy sheriff. The State proved by a preponderance of the evidence the statutory elements required for the suspension of Colyers’ driver’s license due to his refusal to submit to a chemical test of his blood alcohol content.

Affirmed.

C.J. Voigt delivered the decision.

Link: http://tinyurl.com/d78vk7 .

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