Summary 2010 WY 113

Summary of Decision issued August 6, 2010

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

Case Name: Dawes v. State

Citation: 2010 WY 113

Docket Number: S-09-0211

Appeal from the District Court of Carbon County, the Honorable Wade E. Waldrip, Judge.

Representing Dawes: Diane Lozano, State Public Defender; Tina Kerin, Appellate Counsel; and David E. Westling, Senior Assistant Appellate Counsel.

Representing State: Bruce A. Salzburg, Wyoming Attorney General; Terry L. Armitage, Deputy Attorney General; D. Michael Pauling, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Jenny L. Craig, Assistant Attorney General.

Facts/Discussion: Dawes appealed from the judgment and sentence entered by the district court after a jury found him guilty of larceny by bailee for converting to his own use funds his employer had placed in a Wyoming checking account. Dawes challenged the district court’s authority to try him in Wyoming because he had never been in the state until he was extradited to face the charge in this case. He also argued that his conviction was improper because he was listed as a joint owner on the account and could not be convicted for converting money that belonged to him. Dawes also claimed the district court committed plain error in its response to the jury’s question about the definition of the “owner” of the money.

Subject matter jurisdiction: The evidence established that Dawes wrote the unauthorized checks on a Wyoming bank account, effectively converting money located in Wyoming and depriving a Wyoming victim of her money. Similar to Hopkinson, Dawes’ actions outside the state resulted in a crime within the state. Under common law principles, the district court was entitled to exercise jurisdiction because the criminal conduct and its result took place in Wyoming.
Variance between charging documents and trial proof/sufficiency of the evidence: The information and jury instructions were substantively identical. The evidence established that Dawes wrote unauthorized checks in California which removed money from an account located in Wyoming. Under those circumstances, there was sufficient evidence for the jury to conclude that the conversion occurred in Wyoming. Dawes apparently maintained that the State was also required to prove he formed his intent to commit the crime in Wyoming and that was impossible since he had never been to the state before the charges were brought. Consistent with § 6-3-402(b), the district court instructed the jury to determine whether Dawes had the intent to steal or deprive the victim of the money. Given that the evidence established that the conversion actually took place in Wyoming, neither § 6-3-402(b) nor common law jurisdictional concepts required that the State prove where Dawes formed his criminal intent. The evidence was sufficient to establish the location of the crime.
Effect of joint ownership of account: Dawes claimed the district court erred by refusing to dismiss the charge because a joint owner of an account cannot be a bailee and accordingly, cannot be charged with larceny by bailee for removing money from an account. Whether Dawes was an owner of the account was a question of fact. The district court correctly denied Dawes’ motion to dismiss and allowed the jury to determine what the parties intended by setting up the joint account.
Jury question: “If the money is owned by more than one person, does the phrase ‘the owner of the money’ apply to each individual owner?” The jury did not ask for the dictionary definition of “owner” and there was no indication that it did not understand the general meaning of that term. Instead the jury was asking for its specific meaning within § 6-3-402(b). The district court did not violate a clear and unequivocal rule of law when it did not provide the dictionary definition of the term “owner” or when it instructed the jury to determine the issue as a factual matter.

Conclusion: The Court concluded that Dawes was properly charged and tried in Wyoming because he converted funds located in the state. In addition, the district court correctly allowed the jury to determine whether the funds in the account belonged to Dawes or his employer. The district court did not err when it responded to the jurors’ question by telling them that the determination of who owned the money was a factual issue for them to decide.

Affirmed.

C.J. Kite delivered the decision.

Link: http://tinyurl.com/3xxtxtt .

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