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[{"type":"text","text":"Loudest Silent night ever..."}]

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Cowboy State Daily is Wyoming’s largest newspaper with Wyoming’s most experienced journalists. 

<title>You Still Here? Saturday, December 23, 2023 | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Loudest Silent Night ever...

You Still Here? Saturday, December 23, 2023

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's general assignment reporter, Clair McFarland.

Clair McFarland

Government & Politics

Legislature

Next week Idaho will adopt the firing squad as its primary execution method due to availability and failure problems with lethal injection. 

A lawmaker tried to give Wyoming a firing squad option while the state still had a convicted rapist and murderer on death row in 2014, but the bill didn’t clear the Legislature. 

Wyoming law calls for executions by lethal injection. If lethal injection is found unconstitutional, the state can use a gas chamber.

Dale Wayne Eaton, the “Li’l Miss” killer, was convicted in 2004 for kidnapping, raping and murdering Lisa Marie Kimmell 16 years earlier in Wyoming. The jury called for the death penalty.

But in 2014, while Eaton’s appeal was ongoing, many states were running short of the chemicals to perform lethal injections.  

“So we may have had a problem coming up with the drugs needed for the execution,” 

Burns, a Republican of Sheridan, told Cowboy State Daily in a Thursday phone interview.

It would be expensive to build a gas chamber, Burns reasoned, adding, “I always thought gas chamber the most gruesome form of execution anyway.”

Idaho is spending $1.2 million to retrofit an execution chamber for its new firing squad method, the 

[{"type":"text","text":"It doesn’t have to be that expensive, Burns countered."}]

“I don’t know that you’d necessarily need to build a room,” he said. “Even if you did, it could just be cinderblocks.”

[{"type":"text","text":"The Eaton case fizzled in the years that followed."}]

A federal district court judge overturned his death sentence in 2014 because defense lawyers hadn’t pursued a mental-health defense despite Eaton’s mental-health problems.

Prosecutors said they intended to seek the death penalty again on the re-trial, and the trial court ordered a mental evaluation. Then in his mid-70s, Eaton had suffered strokes, dementia and depression, and the trial court found him incompetent to stand trial.

Prosecutors withdrew the death penalty case in 2021 and he was re-sentenced to life in prison the next year.

[{"type":"text","text":"Now 81, Eaton remains in Wyoming's prison system.  "}]

Burns’ 2014 bill made national headlines and surfaced on late-night commentator Stephen Colbert’s show.

“This was back when (Colbert) played the faux conservative,” recalled Burns, a Republican who had represented Sheridan. “It had a picture of me with the graphic ‘thrift justice.’”

The Senate rejected the bill 17-13 on its introductory vote. In even-numbered years, non-budget bills require a two-thirds vote to clear introduction and enter the chamber.

Burns’ legislation resurfaced as a Joint Judiciary Committee bill in 2015, when it had a longer trajectory.

It cleared the Senate and House of Representatives both. The House margin was narrow: 32-28.

In Burns’ view, “the House screwed it up six ways to Sunday and it got to conference committee and it died.”  

Rep. Bob Nicholas, R-Cheyenne, who remains in the House today, secured an amendment requiring Wyoming to administer a sleep drug to a convict before having him shot.

Burns said the “knockout drug” was part of the drug shortfall for lethal injections in the first place, however.

[{"type":"text","text":"Nicholas could not be reached for comment by publication."}]

Burns, Nicholas and other lawmakers later attempted a compromise, saying the state would offer, rather than require, sedation. But the bill failed two conference, or negotiation committees and it died.

[{"type":"text","text":"Look, Speaking Practically"}]

Wyoming Department of Corrections Dan Shannon declined Thursday to speak to the moral and humaneness questions around the death penalty and different methods.

“I consider it’s my responsibility to follow the law and perform the duty as required, and I’d certainly do so,” he said. He added that as for Idaho, “whatever Idaho decides is best for them.”

But if his agency received a death warrant, it’s important to have multiple methods available, Shannon said.

“A primary, or only method, I think, can really get you tied up in court,” he noted.

More than 20 pharmaceutical companies, including 

, banned the use of their medicines in lethal injections in 2016. States scrambled for substitutes. As they did, the number of botched executions spiked, 

[{"type":"text","text":"Some states “compound” or craft the concoction themselves."}]

[{"type":"text","text":"“I believe that’s not the approach,” Shannon said."}]

 For one thing, he said, compounding lethal drugs provokes even more litigation than already surrounds the death penalty.

“In the event that we received a death warrant, I’d approach the legislators and I’d ask, one, that we leave the lethal injection and second, (they’d adopt) nitrogen hypoxia,” or gas, Shannon said.

When Burns’ bill started circulating in 2014, the DOC recommended $30,000 to adjust for the firing squad adjustments. That would be much higher now, noted Shannon, referencing Idaho’s $1.2 million price tag and inflation.

[{"type":"text","text":"No One On Death Row"}]

[{"type":"text","text":"This issue is distant from Shannon in reality, however."}]

 Mark Hopkinson’s lethal injection in 1992 – 13 years after he was convicted.

Hopkinson had ordered the torturous murder of 23-year-old Jeffrey Green, who was set to testify against him for the 1977 bombing of an attorney’s home in which three people died.

The last-minute question of whether then-Gov. Mike Sullivan should commute Hopkinson’s death sentence in 1992 harrowed the governor, he told Cowboy State Daily in an interview last May.  

“You’re not faced with that kind of decision very often,” Sullivan said.

 He had support from others. His priest stayed with him in his office in Cheyenne the day of Hopkinson’s execution.

The depths of contemplation Sullivan reached changed him, though he now can’t pinpoint exactly how. After people surmount decisions that serious, they become more introspective, more thoughtful, he said.

On the one hand, Sullivan knew the state he led was about to take a life. On the other hand, not even the rigid constraints of federal prison had kept Hopkinson from having Green killed.   

That was Sullivan’s chief consideration when he ultimately chose not to commute the man’s death sentence, he said.

Wyoming’s former DOC director Bob Lampert told Cowboy State Daily on Thursday that he disagrees with the death penalty.

[{"type":"text","text":"He has a lot of experience with it, he noted."}]

He served in Texas prisons and ran security at the Ellis One unit in Texas, which housed death row. He also worked in the Huntsville unit, where the executions unfolded, and he was part of the team involved in those executions, he said.

Lampert said he opposes the death penalty now “for a variety of reasons: one of the largest is the impact it has on the (prison) employees as well as the other inmates that get to know the condemned.”

In Idaho, the state is seeking police officers to volunteer as firing squad marksmen.  

After having spoken with multiple condemned inmates just before their executions, Lampert said, none of them considered Texas’ death penalty had factored into their thinking as a deterrent. Their passions, or drug involvements, overwhelmed any such considerations, Lampert recalled.

To pursue a full death penalty case through appeals costs around $1 million, plus the lengthy time they’re incarcerated throughout, he added.

[{"type":"text","text":"“Ultimately it’s an irreversible penalty,” said Lampert."}]

Lampert led Wyoming's prison system for nearly 17 years before retiring in 2023. He recalled how scarce lethal injection drugs grew during that time – a consideration that remained on his mind since he worked for a death penalty state.

In both Wyoming and Texas, “I had to decide if the position I was in – and being responsible for involvement in death penalty cases – was something that I could personally live with despite my opposition to capital punishment,” Lampert reflected. “And I was able to make that adjustment. Because it was the will of the citizens that I worked for. So I was always prepared to carry through with whatever responsibility I had.”

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<title>Idaho's Reviving The Firing Squad. Wyoming Almost Did For Dale Wayne Eaton | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Idaho is switching from lethal injections to firing squad executions on July 1. Wyoming almost added firing squad executions as an alternate method in 2014 because lethal injection drugs were scarce and 'Lil Miss' killer Dale Wayne Eaton was still on death row.

Idaho's Reviving The Firing Squad. Wyoming Almost Did For Dale Wayne Eaton

Heinz mark

Mark Heinz

Fishing

Upper Sunshine Reservoir near Meeteetse is popular with local anglers, particularly for ice fishing, but the reservoir is being drained so fishing there won't be an option for two years.

The Greybull Valley Irrigation District is draining the reservoir “to perform critical irrigation infrastructure repairs,” according to the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

Upper Sunshine is expected to be completely drained by Sept. 1, so engineers can inspect infrastructure and determine what repairs are needed.

It will start refilling Oct. 1 but will be drained again in 2027 for the repair work. Repairs are scheduled for completion by April 2028.

“Game and Fish will not stock the small pool that will form during the 2026-2027 period, as it will be drained again in the fall of 2027. Stocking to rebuild the fishery will resume in the fall of 2028, once repairs are completed and water levels stabilize,” according to the agency.

Dalton Epperson of Cody and his friend Tyler Geving of Meeteetse have fished at Upper and Lower Sunshine reservoirs for years.

Upper Sunshine is primarily for ice fishing, they said.

“It’s usually the first thing that’s frozen” in the area, Epperson said.

Upper Sunshine doesn’t have much fish variety, he added.

“It’s all suckers and cutthroats,” he said.

Meat from the suckers makes good lake trout bait, he said.

Because this past winter was so dry, Upper Sunshine Reservoir wasn’t in the best shape anyway, Geving said.

“It was pretty low during ice fishing season,” he said.

Even so, with plentiful fish and easy access, it’s remained popular, Geving said.

“Upper Sunshine is a good starter lake. It’s a good place to take somebody and teach them ice fishing because you can catch 14- and 15-inch cutthroat all day long,” he said.

The reservoirs are the site of an ice fishing derby during the first week of February.

Epperson said Upper and Lower Sunshine are go-too fishing spots for Park County locals because they're about 40 minutes from Cody.

And from Meeteetse, “locals can be there in about 10 minutes and have their boats on the water,” he added.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Long-Term Goals"}]

While the drainages and construction will tank fishing at Upper Sunshine Reservoir in the short term, the repair work should have lasting benefits for the fishery, according to Game and Fish.

“Recent sampling has indicated reduced growth rates in stocked Yellowstone cutthroat trout, likely due to an overabundance of longnose suckers competing for resources, and the drawdown will significantly reduce the sucker population,” Cody regional fisheries biologist Jason Burckhardt said in a statement from the agency.

Refilling the reservoir will release “a surplus of nutrients” from plants and soil, he added.

That will boost plankton production, so trout should grow faster and bigger, Burkhardt said.

While Upper Sunshine Reservoir is down, anglers can turn their attention to Lower Sunshine Reservoir and other waters in the region.

Some of those include Boysen Reservoir south of Thermopolis, Buffalo Bill Reservoir west of Cody, and Meadowlark Lake in the Bighorn Mountains.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"textStyle"},{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Let’s Go Splake Fishing"}]

Epperson and Geving said draining Upper Sunshine Reservoir will put a pinch on their local angling opportunities. But they understand the work has to be done, and there’s no shortage of other places to fish.

“I know they’ve got to upgrade stuff and keep things fixed, to keep the reservoirs running right,” Geving said. “And Lower Sunshine is more fun to fish because it’s got lake trout and splake, and bigger fish.” 

Splake are a sterile hybrid species popular among Wyoming anglers. They’re produced in Game and Fish hatcheries by crossing male brook trout with female lake trout.

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<title>Upper Sunshine Reservoir Near Meeteetse Drained, No More Fishing For Two years | Cowboy State Daily</title>

Upper Sunshine Reservoir near Meeteetse is popular with local anglers, particularly for ice fishing, but the reservoir is being drained, so there won’t be any fishing there for two years. It’s expected to be completely drained by Sept. 1.

Upper Sunshine Reservoir Near Meeteetse Drained, No More Fishing For Two years

Kolby fedore

Kolby Fedore

Crime & Courts

A Texas man is accused of exposing his erect penis and "wiggling his hips" in the parking lot of a busy Mexican restaurant in Jackson on Tuesday evening before driving away intoxicated.

The alleged incident involving Anthony Joseph Durkas happened at 7:42 p.m. outside El Abuelito Restaurant, a popular family eatery about a five-minute walk west of Jackson Town Square.

A caller told dispatch an intoxicated man pulled down his pants, exposed his genitals and was "swinging it around" in the parking lot before climbing into a white Chevrolet Silverado with Texas license plates.

The public indecency allegation, however, stems largely from what police say happened before officers ever arrived, documented in a probable-cause affidavit filed Wednesday by Sgt. Justin Lancaster of the Jackson Police Department. 

A woman who witnessed the encounter showed Lancaster cellphone video she recorded from the parking lot before providing it to investigators for review. 

The video appeared to show Durkas "passionately kissing a woman" before she reached toward his crotch. 

Lancaster notes the video showed Durkas "appeared to undo his pants facing the female." 

Then, he wrote, Durkas "turned to the side which showed his penis was erect and exposed to the general public."

According to the affidavit, Durkas then began "wiggling his hips, which caused his erect penis to move in a circular motion."

Lancaster wrote the incident occurred during the dinner rush with passing motorists and at least one witness nearby.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"DUI Arrest"}]

As officers arrived, Lancaster reported seeing the pickup backing out of a parking space.

When the officer approached the driver's window, he said he immediately smelled a strong odor of alcohol along with the faint smell of marijuana coming from inside the truck.

Lancaster wrote that Durkas had bloodshot, watery eyes, slurred speech, and appeared unsteady on his feet after getting out of the vehicle.

Lancaster also said Durkas was "slow to follow commands and/or was unable" to comply with instructions.

He noted that Durkas did not respond to a request to perform standardized field-sobriety tests.

Durkas was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence and taken to jail. His pickup was impounded because, according to Lancaster, it was partially blocking the parking lot.

During an inventory search of the truck, officers found a clear plastic bag labeled "MAC GALACTIC" containing suspected psilocybin mushrooms.

Inside a camper shell, officers also reported finding what appeared to be burned and unburned marijuana in a pipe along with a grinder.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Court Proceedings"}]

Durkas appeared Wednesday in Teton County Circuit Court, where he was arraigned on one count each of public indecency and driving under the influence, along with two misdemeanor counts of possessing controlled substances.

If convicted on all four counts and ordered to serve the maximum penalties consecutively, he could face up to 3½ years in jail and $4,500 in fines.

Teton County Circuit Court Judge Erin E. Weisman set a bond at $3,000 cash or surety and scheduled a jury trial for Oct. 27, though the matter could be resolved through a plea agreement or another disposition.

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<title>Texas Man Accused Of Flashing Penis Outside Busy Jackson Mexican Restaurant | Cowboy State Daily</title>

A Texas man is accused of exposing his penis and "swinging it around" in the parking lot of a busy Mexican restaurant in Jackson on Tuesday evening before driving away intoxicated. If convicted on all four counts he could face up to 3½ years in jail.

Texas Man Accused Of Flashing Penis Outside Busy Jackson Mexican Restaurant

Headshot of Cowboy State Daily's Feature Reporter, Andrew Rossi.

Andrew Rossi

Wildlife

 crashed along U.S. Highway 191 in Yellowstone National Park’s northwest corner. Hundreds of destroyed hives have been cleared from the highway, but the homeless bees are 

While many are concerned about the fate of the still-homeless honeybees, others worry about 

Honeybees aren’t native to Yellowstone or North America. Their presence in Yellowstone could have repercussions.

“If these honeybees get established as feral colonies, the primary concerns would be food and disease,” said Laura Burkle, a professor of ecology at Montana State University in Bozeman. “It all depends on whether or not they're going to persist in the area.”

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Native Vs Foreign Bees"}]

Burkle is a community ecologist. She studies bee communities and the flowers and other plants they pollinate in natural and managed systems.

While Burkle was aware of the bee catastrophe in Yellowstone, she didn’t have any specific insight into the circumstances or how many bee colonies had yet to be collected. However, she is aware of the diversity of bees in the park.

“There are hundreds of native species of bees present in Yellowstone,” she said. “Some of them are social, like bumblebees, and some of them are solitary, meaning they don’t live in a colony.”

, published by the National Park Service, said least 3,604 described species of bees inhabit North America. Several National Park Service sites, including Yellowstone and Grand Teton, were included in a cursory nationwide survey.

However, none of these bees are honeybees. All honeybees in the United States were imported from Europe and Africa, with the first colonies arriving in the 18th century.

“That’s why honeybees are considered livestock,” Burkle said. “Bringing a colony of honeybees into a national park wouldn’t typically be allowed.”

Semitrucks aren’t permitted in Yellowstone. The stretch of U.S. 191 between West Yellowstone and Big Sky, Montana, is the exception.

Burkle said honeybees are usually transported en masse to pollinate crops or to move between fields where they can collect nectar for better honey production. The hives, or honey boxes, are critical to their survival.

“Almost all the honeybees in North America go back to a hive,” she said.

Of the 20,000 known species of bees worldwide, only eight are honeybees. Nevertheless, they have been one of the most beneficial insects to humanity since they were first domesticated nearly 5,000 years ago.

That’s where the homeless honeybees could pose a threat to Yellowstone’s natives.

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"A Dish (Or Disease) To Pass"}]

Because honeybees have been so thoroughly domesticated, they tend to rely on their honey boxes to build colonies, raise larvae, and produce honey. A honeybee colony that thrives without hives is what Burkle called a feral colony.

“There aren't very many feral honeybee colonies, although they do exist,” she said. “If there were any honeybees in Yellowstone, they would have to be feral colonies.”

There have been concerns about the impact of non-native honeybees on native ecosystems in North America for decades. Honeybees can be defensive and are known to compete with native bumblebees for food and territory in North America and Europe.

That would be one of Burkle’s primary concerns about the homeless honeys in northwest Yellowstone. If one or multiple colonies establish themselves as feral colonies, they could start competing with the park’s native bumblebees for food.

“Honeybees collected a lot of nectar and pollen to produce honey,” she said. “They could use up floral resources that would be needed to sustain Yellowstone’s native populations, taking food away from native bees.”

The foraging area for a single honeybee hive can extend over two miles. Foraging bees have been observed as far as four miles away from their hives.

Furthermore, bees can only forage when the temperature is right, usually between 55 and 66 degrees. With a limited window and limited resources within their foraging range, non-native honeybees could quickly start competing with native bees.

Then there’s the risk of spreading bee disease. That’s the other concern that immediately presented itself to Burkle.

“It's known that honeybees can give diseases to native bees, and vice versa,” she said. “It’s more likely that these honeybees are carrying various pathogens and parasites that Yellowstone’s native bees haven’t been exposed to before.”

Bees don’t need to come into direct contact to transmit diseases. According to Burkle, they can be shared from flower to flower.

“If a honeybee visits the flower, and then a native bee comes to that flower next, it could pick up a pathogen that was left by a honeybee,” she said.

Between competition for food and the spread of disease, the homeless honeybees could pose a serious problem for Yellowstone’s native bees.

[{"type":"text","text":"But will they?"}]

[{"type":"text","marks":[{"type":"bold"}],"text":"Watchful Wait"}]

When colonies of honeybees are destroyed, it’s in the best interest of their owners to collect as many queens and colonies as they can. Efforts to collect the surviving bees were immediately underway after the semitruck incident.

Without seeing the scene, Burkle couldn’t say how serious the situation might be for Yellowstone’s native bees. That’s partly because not a lot is known about Yellowstone’s bees.

“To my knowledge, Yellowstone's bee populations are poorly characterized and understood,” she said. “There have been studies, not all of which are published, that are just starting to scratch the surface of which species are even present inside the park.”

That means it’s hard to say if Yellowstone’s bees are thriving or struggling.

Entomologists and biologists like Burkle are collecting data to understand the health of these native populations and to determine whether they’re affected by climate change or other environmental factors.

That said, Burkle said there are reasons to think the homeless honeybees won’t make any noticeable impact on native bees. They’re actively being collected, and even an established feral colony might struggle to survive.

“They might not be able to set up colonies, depending on the weather and how far they have to fly to find a suitable place to set up a feral colony,” she said. “They might not be able to persist where they’ve ended up.”

Also, honeybees tend to live the easy life. Their hives are placed in optimal environments, where they don’t have to expend energy foraging to find enough food to sustain themselves and produce honey.

“Big bees, like bumblebees, fly farther than smaller bees,” Burkle said. “Smaller bees might only forage 200 meters away from the hive, so they can have a pretty limited range.”

Burkle was aware that many people are concerned about how these honeybees could impact the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. While there are many potential concerns and factors to consider, there isn’t enough known to inform conclusive answers.

“I’m not an expert on all things bees, but I don’t know how concerned the National Park Service or anyone else is or should be right now,” she said. “These honeybees could be disruptive if they set up feral colonies, but I don’t have a good sense of what’s happening down there. I don’t know if I have a good answer at this time.”

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<title>Yellowstone's Homeless Honeybees Could Make Native Bumblebees Sick, Scientist Says | Cowboy State Daily</title>

There is concern that homeless honeybees that remain in Yellowstone after last week's semi crash could threaten the native bees. They are likely "carrying pathogens and parasites that Yellowstone’s bees haven’t been exposed to," one professor said.

Yellowstone's Homeless Honeybees Could Make Native Bumblebees Sick, Scientist Says

Courts

The things Wyoming state Rep. Bill Allemand said while handcuffed for 12 minutes during a 

 can’t be used as direct evidence against him in a trial slated for September, because his arresting deputy failed to give him his Miranda rights, a Johnson County court magistrate has ruled. 

Allemand, a Republican state representative of the Mills area, 

 on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol in Johnson County – one day after a Buffalo traffic stop just off Interstate 25.

When Johnson County Deputy Caleb Campbell stopped Allemand at around midday Dec. 28, Campbell handcuffed Allemand without first giving the lawmaker his Miranda warnings against incriminating himself. 

That was a fair move, because Allemand had a gun on his front truck seat and Campbell had concerns about officer safety, Buffalo Circuit Court Magistrate Jeremy Kisling ruled in a Friday order. 

But Allemand remained handcuffed for 12 minutes – including a length of time after Campbell had secured the gun and after Campbell’s secondary “cover” deputy arrived. And Campbell kept asking Allemand questions, and also urged Allemand to be honest with him, according to court documents and body-camera video shown in court. 

This led to a number of potentially incriminating statements while Allemand was confined, but not warned the order says. 

Because Allemand was being interrogated while in custody without receiving his Miranda warnings, 

 he said during that 12-minute span can’t be part of the Johnson County Attorney’s Office’s main case against him at his Sept. 16 trial in Buffalo Circuit Court, Kisling ruled. 

“Even in consideration of the totality of the circumstances, the court can think of no scenario where a reasonable person would not consider themselves in police custody after being placed in handcuffs,” Kisling wrote. “Deputy Campbell violated the defendant’s constitutional rights by questioning him while he was handcuffed without reading Miranda advisements.” 

A Johnson County judge ruled that anything Wyoming state Rep. Bill Allemand said while handcuffed for 12 minutes during a DUI traffic stop can’t be used as direct evidence against him, because his arresting deputy failed to give him his Miranda rights.

You Still Here? Saturday, December 23, 2023

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