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Summary 2009 WY 89

Summary of Decision issued July 10, 2009

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

Case Name: Creecy v. State

Citation: 2009 WY 89

Docket Number: S-08-0211

Appeal from the District Court of Uinta County, the Honorable Dennis L. Sanderson, Judge.

Representing Creecy: Diane M. Lozano, State Public Defender; Tina N. Kerin, Appellate Counsel; and Kirk A. Morgan, Senior Assistant Appellate Counsel.

Representing State: Bruce A. Salzburg, Attorney general; Terry L. Armitage, Deputy Attorney General; D. Michael Pauling, Senior Assistant Attorney General; Graham M. Smith, Assistant Attorney General.

Facts/Discussion: A jury convicted Creecy of aggravated assault for intentionally and knowingly causing bodily injury to Chavez with a knife in a bar fight. Creecy asserted the district court erred in instructing the jury concerning the claim of self defense. The Court reviewed the instructions in the instant case and stated the instruction was from the Wyoming Criminal Pattern Jury Instructions and had been used in Harries v. State, Garcia v. State and Small v. State. The Court noted that the difficulty with Creecy?s argument was that evidence was presented from which the jury could have concluded that after Chavez pummeled him, he armed himself and attacked Chavez as he was leaving the bar. Creecy failed to establish that plain error occurred when the district court gave the instruction concerning ?duty to retreat.?
ted a clear and unequivocal rule of law. Given the conflicting evidence as to who the aggressor was when Chavez was stabbed, Creecy also failed to show that giving the instruction denied him a substantial right to his material prejudice.

Affirmed.

J. Kite delivered the decision.

Link: http://tinyurl.com/lms37x .

[SPECIAL NOTE: This opinion uses the "Universal Citation." It was given an "official" citation when it was issued. You should use this citation whenever you cite the opinion, with a P.3d parallel citation. Please note when you look at the opinion that all of the paragraphs are numbered. When you pinpoint cite to a quote, you should cite to this paragraph number rather than to any page number. If you need assistance in putting together a citation using the Universal Citation form, please contact the Wyoming State Law Library.]

Full post as published by Law Library Letter on July 13, 2009 (boomark / email).