CHEYENNE—A Wyoming Supreme Court ruling allowing citizens to sue the government over negligent investigations by law enforcement will stand after a House committee declined to take up the issue Wednesday.
Lawmakers on last year’s Joint Judiciary Committee, which oversees courts and law enforcement, narrowly voted to bring a bill to the new Legislature that would overrule the justices. If passed, House Bill 53, “Governmental claims-negligent investigations”, would have made it nearly impossible to sue the state if a flawed law enforcement investigation caused harm.
But the bill lost traction with new House members, as the Judiciary Committee declined to advance it. The measure is now dead, unless a lawmaker chooses to sponsor it individually. They’ll have to do so by a Jan. 29 deadline.
The bill’s roots stretched back to a controversial 2019 Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation raid on a hemp farm. DCI officers seized the farmers’ crops and the Laramie County District Attorney’s office charged them as marijuana traffickers, with major felonies. A judge quickly threw the case out, finding the crop was clearly hemp.
The case has had long-running ramifications, with one of the DCI officers being accused of lying on the stand in a case that reached the Wyoming Supreme Court.
One of the hemp farmers, who spent more than $50,000 on attorney fees to defend herself, sued the state for damages caused by the investigation. The lawsuit bounced from federal to state court after a federal judge found Wyoming statute wasn’t clear on whether state law enforcement officers have a legal duty not to conduct “negligent” investigations. The justices voted 3-2 that officers did and allowed the farmers’ suit to continue. It’s still pending.
The 2024 Joint Judiciary Committee voted 8-6 to bring the bill to the Legislature. Trial lawyers and the Legislature’s few Democrats opposed overruling the state Supreme Court.
The right balance?
The bill appeared poised to bring an interesting question to the new House, which is dominated by conservative Republicans: Would they back law enforcement all the way, or would they be weary of giving authorities too much immunity to interfere in people’s lives, if there wasn’t ultimately a crime?
Wednesday brought an answer — at least from the selection of Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee. When Chairman Art Washut, R-Casper, asked for a motion to move the bill to the House floor, he was met with silence.
In interviews with WyoFile, some Republicans said the bill gave police officers too much power. “Creating a blanket environment where peace officers don’t have to act reasonably to enforce the law, that I think goes a step too far,” Cheyenne Republican Daniel Singh said. Singh is in his second term, but his first on the Judiciary committee.
“I want, of course, law and order, to protect justice,” he said, “but that is not a free pass for officers to conduct themselves in a way that would reflect poorly on this state.”
Rep. Lee Filer, R-Cheyenne, who returned to the House this year after a decade out of office, also said the bill weighed the scales too much in favor of law enforcement. “I believe citizens have the right to keep their government accountable,” Filer said. The bill “kind of closed the door.”
Law enforcement chiefs worry the state Supreme Court ruling will quench detectives’ fire. The hemp case lawsuit has been followed by other lawsuits against law enforcement that make reference to negligent investigating, Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police Executive Director Allen Thompson said.
The bill always faced a tough road in the Legislature, Thompson said. He and other proponents of the bill saw the Supreme Court ruling as forcing on officers a legal obligation toward their crime suspects. “Some of those more difficult investigations,” he said, “that require a lot of, you know, burning up the shoe leather and making phone calls, [investigators] might not see that that risk is worth the reward, but it remains to be seen.”
He noted that law enforcement officers still operate under strong legal protections against any personal liabilities for actions taken in the course of their duties.
“We just want to make sure that the message to our staffs across the state is that we are supporting them in their investigations and doing what we can to keep really providing the best service that we can to victims,” he said.
New faces, failed bills
The committee, and the House as a whole, has faced criticism for largely jettisoning the work its predecessors conducted over the year in between legislative sessions. Some of that comes from new ideologies, Singh said.
“As everybody knows, this is a different legislative body than it was two years ago,” he said. “And so we are seeing the different ideologies being represented in this new legislature.”
But in other cases, the death of bills may arise in part from inexperience. Rep. Tom Kelly, R-Sheridan, told WyoFile he intended to vote for HB 53 to get a full debate in the House. He didn’t realize that if no one responded to Washut’s request, the bill would die.
“Rookie mistake,” he said. Kelly said he personally thought the bill gave too much deference to investigators and leaned against it, but he wanted to see a full debate on a topic that has drawn such tight decisions from policymakers so far. “We’re in uncharted waters, and I’m a rookie. I wanted to send it to people who have been here awhile,” he said.
The committee’s lone Democrat, Ken Chestek, had opposed the bill when on the old committee. He continued to be against it, but told WyoFile that in the wake of Kelly’s realization he had polled other committee members after Wednesday’s action, seeking potentially a redo on the bill. Friday morning, however, he told WyoFile the votes weren’t there to reconsider the bill.
Thompson said: “Some of those more difficult investigations,” he said, “that require a lot of, you know, burning up the shoe leather and making phone calls, [investigators] might not see that that risk is worth the reward, but it remains to be seen.” It’s called doing your job…..anyone who performs to a sub standard level needs either remedial help to bring them into a level of acceptable performance, or…the alternative would be to fire them.
I’m not a big advocate for law suits, seems like every time you turn around, somebody is suing somebody else. Some of em are necessary, some maybe not. But to blatantly provide protection to anyone (including LEOs) is wrong. People need to be held accountable for their actions…..
Why should cops, prosecutors and others who make their living enforcing the law be immune to the very same laws? Talking to you, Barry Crago and Ember Oakley (oh, forgot, your constituents took a hard pass on you, Ember)