POWELL—After a Casper judge blocked the Wyoming Legislature’s latest attempt to prohibit abortions in the state, a Powell city councilman raised the prospect of “hanging bad judges.”
Councilman Troy Bray made the remark in a Saturday evening Facebook comment, and following media coverage, he posted a lengthy statement early Wednesday.
Bray wrote in part that his comment was “a statement of my beliefs, NOT a threat, as some have characterized it, nor is it a call for others to act.”
“The upshot of my comment is that Wyoming has a broken Judicial system,” he added, going on to list a series of grievances with the judiciary.
Bray said he’s “determined to fix what is wrong in Wyoming … by any means necessary” and will “exhaust every peaceful means I can find.”
Ballot box versus hanging
Bray made his comment about hangings on a post by state Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, who had shared a news story about Natrona County District Court Judge Dan Forgey halting the enforcement of the “Human Heartbeat Act.”
The new law, which prohibits abortions once a fetal heartbeat can be detected, is being challenged by abortion rights supporters.
Similar suits recently resulted in the Wyoming Supreme Court striking down earlier abortion restrictions. The high court said in January that those bans ran afoul of state residents’ constitutional right to make their own health care decisions; Forgey alluded to that ruling in his Friday order, which pauses the new heartbeat law while the litigation is underway.
In his Facebook post, Yin said the Legislature “should obey the Constitution and the freedom to make your own healthcare choices.
“Instead we keep making it harder to keep doctors in Wyoming and kids in this state,” Yin wrote. “The only way that changes is at the ballot box.”
Bray responded, “The only way Wyoming is going to have freedom is to start hanging bad judges.”
The comment drew the attention of Cowboy State Daily, which wrote a Tuesday story that included quotes from multiple judges and Powell Mayor John Wetzel that were critical of the councilman’s remark.
Former Wyoming Supreme Court Justice Bill Hill told the publication that Bray “is obviously an idiot and does not deserve public office.”
Cowboy State Daily’s story quickly drew over 500 responses on Facebook that included some more criticism of Bray and others expressing agreement or coming to his defense.
“While I wouldn’t say what Troy did, I can see how we got here and feel his disappointment,” Lia Tracy of Cody wrote on Cowboy State Daily’s Facebook page.
Nick Randol of Meeteetse added on Bray’s page that he saw the story as a “hit piece.” “Keep fighting and standing your ground,” Randol wrote. “The judges and judicial in WY, and across the country, need to be reminded of their place and purpose.”
Past remarks
It’s not the first time that Bray has used charged language.
He wrote on Facebook in April 2025 that, “Violence may not be my first option, or even an option I want, but make no mistake-violence is ALWAYS an option.”
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021, Bray criticized public health officers at a Park County Republican Party meeting, saying there were “power-hungry dictators with an MD behind their name that need to be fired — or executed. I’m good with either one.”
Later that year, Bray sent Sen. Tara Nethercott, R-Cheyenne, an email criticizing her opposition to legislation that would have prohibited mandatory vaccinations. He wrote in part that, “If I were as despicable a person as you, I would kill myself to rid the world of myself,” and closed by saying, “F— YOU C—.”
The email was widely shared and drew condemnation, with then-House Speaker Eric Barlow and then-Senate President Dan Dockstader calling on Bray to resign his elected precinct committee position within the Park County Republican Party.
However, Bray declined to resign, and the county and state branches of the Republican Party declined to censure him.
Barlow and Dockstader each said they’d work to ensure there were “appropriate statutory means to remove an elected official for such egregious behavior in the future,” but there has been no movement on that front.
In last winter’s budget session, Dockstader joined 19 other senators in killing a House bill that would have subjected mayors and council members to recall. For his part, Bray has spoken in favor of creating a recall process.
“As a person who has had a bill proposed specifically to remove me from office, I think we should extend that to every elected official in the state — including the governor, the speaker of the House and the Senate president,” he said at the Park County Republican Party convention in February.
The resolution Bray supported — which was ultimately passed by the party — also called for allowing voters to directly elect judges.
“We need to fix our system,” Bray said then, “because we keep getting lawyers as judges.”
In his Wednesday Facebook post, Bray criticized how courts are run and the way judges are currently selected in Wyoming — a process that involves vetting by a half-dozen lawyers and gubernatorial appointees and selection by the governor. Voters then decide whether to retain or remove judges, but Bray said, “the people have the deck stacked against them.”
He wrote that anyone who doesn’t vote to remove a judge is deemed to have voted to retain them, but that is not true.
So-called “undervotes” do not factor into a judge’s retention, because, as the Wyoming Constitution says, a judge must get the support of “a majority of those voting on the question.”
A national debate
Bray’s comment comes amid a wider debate about political speech and violence.
On Tuesday, the Department of Justice announced it had indicted former FBI Director James Comey for posting a photo on Instagram of seashells arranged into the numbers “86 47.” The department says the reference to “86” — a term that can refer to getting rid of something — amounted to a criminal threat to harm 47th President Donald Trump.
“The temperature needs to be turned down, and anyone who dials it up and threatens the life of the President will be held accountable,” Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement.
Comey said in his own statement that he’s innocent and that “this is not how the Department of Justice is supposed to be.”
Also on Tuesday, Trump’s White House asserted that a California man’s reported attempt to assassinate the president and other administration officials at Saturday night’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner was “the predictable result of years of reckless, inflammatory, & escalating rhetoric from Democrats.”
As one example, the administration cited a statement that Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made last fall, in which he said people should “be forcefully rising up” against the way Trump has used the Department of Justice.
In a statement on the shooting, Schumer said that, “Political violence has no place in our democracy.”
Bray has shared multiple Facebook posts related to Saturday’s attack, including one accusing the Democratic Party of “normalizing the k*lling of any political leader they don’t like.”
In his Wednesday statement about the hangings comment, Bray said he’s seen “the other side … use violence and threats daily.”
Bray was elected to the city council in 2024 and is in the second year of his four-year term.
