Liquid bleach can be a deadly weapon, the Wyoming Supreme Court ruled Tuesday, after a man who splashed bleach in his romantic rival’s face challenged his felony conviction.
Glenn Tyrone Green, 48 of Casper asked the high court whether the aggravated assault charge that landed him in prison last year was proper.
He was convicted of a variation of the state’s aggravated assault law that claimed he used a “deadly weapon” on someone, and his weapon of choice was a liquid bleach mixture that caused injuries of disputed severity.
The morning of July 29, 2023, Green entered another Casper man’s home uninvited through a sliding glass door, greeted the man with, “Surprise, motherf***er” and “I know you’ve been with my wife,” according to the Wyoming Supreme Court’s Tuesday ruling.
The high court declined to reverse Green’s conviction.
Green splashed liquid bleach from a paper Pepsi cup into the man’s face, hit him with a BB gun and said, “Now you are going to die slowly,” the order says.
Then Green left the home.
The victim washed his face and called 911.
He told a detective on scene that he felt like his body was “on fire” and he suffered the most pain he’s ever endured, the document says. The detective noted that the victim’s eyes were red and inflamed, and the left side of his face was swollen.
Wyoming Medical Center staff later reported that the victim’s back showed signs of chemical irritation. Investigators found the man’s recliner bleached and discovered the Pepsi cup on the floor next to it.
Pleading Guilty
Green signed a plea deal in which the prosecutor promised to argue for no more than six years in prison, as long as Green could behave himself while awaiting his sentencing.
Aggravated assault is normally punishable by up to 10 years in prison.
Green did not behave himself while awaiting sentencing, the ruling says. He didn’t cooperate with a state investigator trying to build a mini-biography on his life for the judge to reference at sentencing.
Because of his noncompliance, the prosecutor could, and did, abandon his conditional promise to limit his argument to six years in prison.
Green pleaded guilty to aggravated assault in Natrona County District Court.
It was District Court Judge Daneil L. Forgey’s job to hear a “factual basis,” or a confession from Green that matched the charge to which he was pleading guilty.
Forgey did that, and also received permission from Green’s defense attorney to pull factual basis from the law-enforcement probable cause report that had started the court case.
Green’s in-court confession didn’t establish whether bleach was a deadly weapon.
He was sentenced June 26, 2024, to between six and eight years in prison. He’ll be eligible for parole Jan. 9, 2028, says his Wyoming Department of Corrections location registry.
Made Of Potential Outcomes
Wyoming’s legal definition of “deadly weapon” is an umbrella term full of potentials.
The law says a thing is a deadly weapon if it is “reasonably capable” of causing death or serious bodily injury. And serious bodily injury is an injury that creates a substantial risk of death or causes severe protracted pain, disfigurement or impairment of a bodily function.
In past cases, the Wyoming Supreme Court already has ruled that beer bottles, clay art, frying pans, chairs, jack handles — and sometimes shoes — can be deadly weapons, the order says.
On appeal, Green acknowledged that bleach could be a deadly weapon, but argued that no one proved it was used that way in his own attack, says the order.
“While Mr. Green acknowledges (the victim) suffered bodily injury, he asserts he did not suffer serious bodily injury as that term is defined in the Wyoming Criminal Code,” the high court wrote.
It was proper for Forgey to consider the combined contexts of Green’s confession, the law-enforcement account, “reasonable inferences and commonsense” to conclude that Green’s bleach concoction was “reasonably capable of producing serious bodily injury,” the high court concluded.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
