The Powell City Council on Monday officially condemned political violence after one of its members made a widely-publicized comment about “hanging judges” last week in response to courts halting Wyoming abortion bans.
The council voted in favor of a resolution to “condemn and reject any and all statements which threaten or support political violence, including threats toward judges in our courts.”
The resolution, styled as a message to the public and not as a disciplinary action, came roughly a week after Powell City Councilman Troy Bray suggested “hanging bad judges” in a Facebook comment amid a conversation about Wyoming judges blocking the state’s abortion bans.
Six council members voted in favor of the resolution. Bray cast the lone nay vote against it.
Councilman Steve Lensegrav had brought the resolution.
It says the Powell City Council recognizes the fundamental importance of an independent judiciary in the government and for the protection of constitutional rights, and that judges play a crucial role in interpreting the Wyoming and U.S. Constitutions.
“Statements supporting political violence of any kind, including those threatening violence toward judges, undermine the role of an independent judiciary,” the resolution says. “We resolve that we condemn and reject any and all statements which threaten or support political violence, including threats toward judges in our courts.”
Lensegrav told the council during the Monday meeting that the resolution is important to show that the city’s governing body supports the rule of law.
It doesn’t curb individual variations of speech, he said, but, “I think as a body the people we represent need to know we support the rules and regulations we’re under.”
Mayor John Wetzel voiced agreement.
‘This Is Where We’re Going To Draw A Line'
Bray countered.
“I find it interesting that we’ve had three opportunities to say we don’t think we should shoot our president, don’t think we should shoot people for speaking their mind,” said Bray. “But this is where we’re going to draw a line and make a stand.
I applaud you for at least taking a stand though.”
Wetzel told Cowboy State Daily in a Tuesday interview that the nay vote by “one of our council members” left him puzzled, “when it’s pretty clear (condemning violence) is how we all should think.”
Wetzel emphasized that the resolution doesn’t carry consequences because the council doesn’t have that kind of disciplinary power, though it can send a message to the public.
The statewide attention on Bray’s comment “wasn’t the greatest look for the town of Powell,” Wetzel added.
Bray declined comment via text message Tuesday.
More About This Comment
Bray didn’t outright threaten any judges. He was responding to a post by Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, which had contained a link to a Wyoming Public Media story announcing Natrona County District Court Judge Dan Forgey’s April 24 order blocking Wyoming’s latest abortion ban from being enforced.
“The only way Wyoming is going to have freedom is to start hanging bad judges,” wrote Bray, who later confirmed in an April 29 post on his own Facebook page that he authored the post.
Bray’s follow-up post says that his comment was a statement of his beliefs, not a threat or a call for others to act, and says the upshot is that Wyoming has a broken judicial system.
By then, Bray’s comment had sparked outcry.
Cowboy State Daily interviewed multiple retired judges and two retired Wyoming Supreme Court justices about the comment, who all condemned it.
That includes retired Wyoming Supreme Court Justice Bill Hill, who, while confirming he’s pro-life, also said Bray is “obviously an idiot and does not deserve public office.”
More controversy followed.
Cowboy State Daily columnist Jonathan Lange wrote in a Friday column that reading those judges’ statements of consternation, shock and sadness yields a “grotesque contrast” to the horrors unborn babies endure during abortion.
“They experience abortion as a brutal and nasty invasion of their sanctuary that unjustly executes them without a trial,” wrote Lange. “While we wring our hands when somebody opposes abortion with too much vehemence, they would be astounded at the utter disregard that we have for their humanity.”
More From Bray
Bray listed a number of grievances he has with Wyoming’s court system, including that phones and recording are not allowed in the courts of Natrona County.
Phones and recording are disallowed in courtrooms across Wyoming.
He pointed to other grievances — Gov. Mark Gordon’s closures of private businesses in Wyoming “over a bad cold,” and the difficulty for people who tried to find relief in courts.
He derided the way Wyoming chooses judges by having a panel of lawyers and non-lawyers send three nominees to the governor, who appoints one to fill the bench.
“This results in governors appointing their wives to the Supreme Court,” said Bray.
That is inaccurate. Gov. Dave Freudenthal recommended his wife, now-Senior U.S. District Court Judge for Wyoming, to the federal judiciary.
That selection process involves presidential nomination and U.S. Senate confirmation instead of Wyoming’s state judge selection process.
“And (it results in governors appointing) their Attorney General — the governors (sic) personal lawyer to that lofty position,” wrote Bray.
Gordon appointed his then-AG Bridget Hill to the Wyoming Supreme Court last year. However, the AG represents the governor in his official, not his personal, capacity.
“The governor owns the courts,” wrote Bray. “And the people have the deck stacked against them.”
Bray criticized a February 2025 order by Laramie County District Court Judge Peter Froelicher ordering the Wyoming Legislature to buy more computers for public schoolchildren, among other mandates.
“Here in the U.S. we are fairly insulated from the rest of the world, so not many people are aware of what goes on in small and insignificant countries,” wrote Bray, “but there are examples of what happens when the people are denied justice.”
He listed incidents in other countries where people revolted and violently attacked their leaders because they “WANT justice. They WILL fight for it.”
Bray continued: “Hell, our nation was founded by men who were sick of being denied justice. And Wyoming Courts leave justice in the trash can on their way to play another round of golf and drink another scotch on the rocks.”
Bray pointed to efforts he’s made to “fix what is wrong in Wyoming,” and listed civic efforts, like pushing toward a legislature and local offices committed to addressing the problems.
Lawmakers tried and failed this year to change Wyoming’s judicial system.
The two-thirds threshold for non-budget bills to enter the Senate or House of Representatives floor during the budget sessions that unfold on even-numbered years killed some of those efforts.
Next year those same bills, if resurrected, will only need a majority vote to gain traction.
For Four Years Here
Since the landmark case of Roe v. Wade was overturned in 2022, Wyoming state judges have blocked all four of the Legislature’s attempts to ban abortion, citing a section of the Wyoming Constitution that promises health care autonomy for competent adults.
Forgey blocked the Human Heartbeat Act temporarily while a pro-choice coalition challenges its constitutionality.
He pointed to a Jan. 6 order by the Wyoming Supreme Court which had ruled that abortion is health care, and accessing to it is a right protected by the most rigorous standards in constitutional law.
In 2021, Bray caught statewide attention after he sent a vulgar email to state Sen. Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, while he was serving as a Park County Republican Party precinct committeeman.
Bray criticized Nethercott for her role in defeating a bill that would have prohibited COVID-19 vaccine mandates.
“If I were as despicable a person as you, I would kill myself to rid the world of myself,” Bray wrote to Nethercott.
Then-Wyoming Senate President Dan Dockstader and House Speaker Eric Barlow issued a statement condemning Bray's letter at the time and urged the Wyoming and Park County Republican parties to demand his resignation as a committeeman.
The Legislature’s Forays
After the Wyoming Supreme Court’s Jan. 6 ruling proclaiming abortion health care, and access to it a fundamental right, some lawmakers tried to change the state Constitution so that the Legislature could restrict it.
Changing the constitutional provision on which the high court relied would have changed the legal framework of that issue.
But that didn’t work out.
Sen. Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, in February proposed a constitutional amendment change that didn’t reference abortion, but said the Wyoming Legislature could define “health care.”
Republican lawmakers who voted against the proposition told Cowboy State Daily they worried about other, non-abortion health care measures that future Legislatures could restrict, wrongly or excessively.
After Salazar’s measure failed, no other legislator filed a proposed constitutional change.
Lawmakers instead passed the Human Heartbeat Act.
It became law March 9 and remained in effect until Forgey’s April 24 ruling. The law had banned abortions, except medical-emergency abortions, after the point at which a fetal heartbeat could be detected, about six weeks’ gestation.
The law says that if a judge blocks the heartbeat provision, a ban on abortions after the point of viability — about 24 weeks’ gestation — becomes law instead.
Wyoming authorities have undertaken the process to implement the viability ban.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
