It’s time to take a look at what’s happening around Wyoming for Thursday, January 29th. I’m Mac Watson.
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A Green River judge on Wednesday hinted he’ll send the animal cruelty case of Cody Roberts to a jury in two months. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that Judge Richard Lavery stopped just short of denying Roberts’ argument for immunity, saying he’ll file a written order later.
“Cody Roberts had argued by his attorney, Robert Piper, like we have all these carve outs to allow for the capture, hunting, killing, destruction of predators and some other wildlife in our state laws to where you can't be charged with felony animal cruelty if you're doing those things and you're doing it in a way that's not otherwise violating laws. So if you're following the trapping laws, you can't be charged with animal cruelty for trapping an animal, that kind of thing. And so that argument came before Judge Lavery Wednesday in it was actually in sublet County District Court, but Lavery was in Green River…His attorney, Robert Piper and the prosecutor of Sublette County, attorney Clayton Malinkovich also appeared by virtual link with Judge Larry in the Green River courthouse, which is his natural base. And they argued at length. They argued which witnesses are allowed, which what kind of evidence is allowed. But the biggest argument was when Cody Roberts Attorney Robert Piper said, ‘Look, if you let this case go forward, it's going to upend Wyoming hunting laws, because on a prosecutor's whim or the mob or social media or activist pressure, we could prosecute people for capturing animals in ways that we dislike.’ And Clayton Malinkovich, the prosecutor countered, saying, ‘No, because there's a state of mind attached to the definition of animal torture. It's willful or malicious. So if you are just out shooting an elk and you're not being willful and malicious about watching it suffer, then we're not going to prosecute you for animal cruelty.’”
During today’s court proceedings, Judge Lavery said two consequential things. One, the judge said he felt the defense was treating the exception too broadly, and two, he proceeded to plan many of the technical aspects of the trial, including wanting a panel of 31 jurors.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Buffalo Circuit Court judge Wednesday found that continued random alcohol testing was appropriate for State Rep. Bill Allemand despite his request that it be suspended during the budget session. Cowboy State Daily’s Dale Killingbeck reports that the judge de …..
“Representative Bill Allemand and his attorney were in Buffalo Circuit Court today via video, and they were there because they wanted to change the bond that Representative Allemand was given after he was arrested for drunk driving back in December, and as part of that, he has to do testing. But according to information in the court today, the testing is the least possible. So it's only like once a month. But what came out today was that his attorney, through written argument, and then in court today argued that it's unconstitutional to have him tested because he's still innocent until proven guilty, and that the fact that he has no criminal record also is a reason why he shouldn't be tested…The judge recommended either he could buy a breathalyzer, portable breathalyzer test, or he could go to a Laramie County place where he can do it around his legislative sessions and and accomplish it that way.”
State Representative Allemand is fighting a driving while under the influence of alcohol charge in Johnson County. According to court affidavits, the charge against Allemand stems from a report from a fellow driver headed northbound on I-25 around noon on Dec. 28 who told authorities that Allemand’s blue Tacoma pickup “was all over the road hitting rumble strips, varying speeds, and the driver was described as a white male in his 60s.
Read the full story HERE.
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A grizzly spotted out wandering in Yellowstone National Park on Monday might be up from hibernation. Cowboy State Daily’s Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports the bear is incredibly early or awake incredibly late.
“Bear sightings are not completely unheard of this time of year, but they are extremely rare. And the interesting part here is that, of course, nobody can know for certain…is this bear still out, or did it just come out of the den and now it's going to stay out? Or did it just come out of the den for a short walk, about maybe grab a snack and go back into its den. Nobody's been able to determine that. But again, it's unusual, because a good general rule is the first bears, which are usually the great, big, gigantic, dominant males, don't start really popping out of the den and getting active until the first week of March or so. And we've got one, like an average size bear out running around in January.”
Prominent bear expert Frank van Manen tells Cowboy State Daily that this could be one of the earliest bear sightings on record.
Read the full story HERE.
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In a widespread state-wide hoax, automated voicemails left at high schools around Wyoming threatened to detonate bombs and shoot up schools Wednesday. Cowboy State Daily’s Greg Johson reports that authorities say that over a dozen schools in Wyoming got the same AI-generated threat.
“They have things that they check on where they can tell where, where a call originates from. And in this case, it was outside the United States, and whoever left the message was either used, either it was a digital message, it was totally AI, using a robot voice, or it was something that disguised their voice to sound mechanical and basically the threat. It was a pretty serious threat, even though they knew very quickly that it wasn't a credible threat, but it was that there were bombs in the school, and it was the same threat sent to everybody.”
Chance Walkama, chief deputy of operations for the Laramie County Sheriff’s Office tells Cowboy State Daily that just because it’s a threat generated by artificial intelligence doesn’t mean they’re harmless or that they’re not taken seriously.
Read the full story HERE.
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I’ll be back with more news from Cowboy State Daily right after this.
Cowboy State Daily news continues now…
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Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder announced Wednesday her office is launching an investigation into the special education program at Sweetwater County School District No. 1. Cowboy State Daily’s Clair McFarland reports that the investigation comes after multiple noncompliance complaints.
“This investigation is special ed, and there are really strict parameters. You've got federal law, you've got all sorts of mandates. And so this is Degenfelder saying, ‘Hey, this is an area where I really want to step in and make sure they're doing it right’…She basically said, ‘I don't like interfering with local control.’ But the uproar. On this one, the complaints of non compliance are pushing me to take a deeper look.”
The Wyoming Department of Education says it will start a “special monitoring process of special education practices and procedures” starting on February 23rd and will continue through the 27th.
Read the full story HERE.
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Popular with photographers and wildlife watchers because of his remarkable size, a bull elk named “Split 5” was legally killed by a hunter. Outdoors Reporter Mark Heinz reports that fans are mourning the loss of the gigantic bull elk that was part of the Estes Park, Colorado, urban herd.
“It's one of those celebrity animals that everybody knows, and now he's gone, and people are sad about it. And I talked to a gentleman from Wyoming who is an El Contra and a wildlife photographer, and he did go down there frequently, and he's got a lot of pictures and a lot of memories with the Split 5 bull. And he said, ‘Yeah. On one hand, it's sad. On the other hand, hey, if he was legally taken by a hunter, that’s great.’ And the bull was old anyway. The bull is probably about 13. You know, if they're lucky, they live to be about 15.”
The bull was apparently shot during Colorado’s fall hunting season. After the news broke this week that Split 5 was gone, social media lit up with tributes to the legendary bull.
Read the full story HERE.
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A Carbon County, Utah, deputy is in trouble after being accused of playing cornhole naked from the waist down. Cowboy State Daily’s Andrew Rossi reports that Carbon County, Wyoming, Sheriff Alex Bakken is making sure people know that’s a Utah deputy, not his.
“A Carbon County Sheriff's deputy was spotted in their own driveway playing cornhole, what I dubbed ‘Commando Cornhole,’ because they were wearing nothing below the waist, no pants, no underwear, and they were cited with two misdemeanors, one of which was obstruction of justice for trying to submit a false video as evidence after the fact. The thing is, this was Carbon County, Utah, not Carbon County, Wyoming. So a lot of people in Carbon County Wyoming saw the headline and assumed it was one of their deputies. And Sheriff Alex Bakken went online to say, ‘Yes, this was a Carbon County Sheriff's deputy. No, it was not a Wyoming Carbon County Sheriff's deputy.’ Apparently, there are four carbon counties in the United States, and sometimes people get confused. And this was one of those headlines that just popped out when you saw it. So yes, there was a Carbon County Sheriff's deputy playing commando cornhole, but it was not a Wyoming Carbon County Sheriff's deputy playing Commando Cornhole. And Sheriff Bakken said he doesn't discourage any of his deputies from playing Commando Cornhole, so long as they aren't breaking Wyoming statutes while they do it.”
Bakken said he got home and was settling in after a day on the job Tuesday when his phone started blowing up.
Read the full story HERE.
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And that’s today’s news. Get your free digital subscription to Wyoming's only statewide newspaper by hitting the Daily Newsletter button on Cowboy State Daily Dot Com - and you can watch this newscast every day by clicking Subscribe on our YouTube channel, or listen to us on your favorite podcast app. Thanks for watching - I’m Mac Watson, for Cowboy State Daily.
