Bill Simpson

In a rare move, the Wyoming Supreme Court is reviewing a Cody judge’s decision to release a local man from prison and place him on probation.

Park County District Court Judge Bill Simpson ruled in August that Cameron Boni’s nine-10-year prison sentence should be converted to five years of supervised probation. The judge largely cited concerns about Boni’s mental health.

However, the Park County County Attorney’s Office and the Wyoming Attorney General’s Office assert Simpson lacked the authority to change the sentence, since the prison time was part of a plea deal the judge previously approved.

Simpson set “a dangerous precedent,” they contend, undermining prosecutors’ ability to rely on plea deals. Since the judge made his ruling, the county attorney’s office has refused to negotiate with at least one defendant.

Boni’s defense attorney, Tim Blatt, meanwhile, argues Simpson had the ability to reduce Boni’s sentence and that the reduction was needed to avoid a “miscarriage of justice.”

The parties will submit their formal arguments to the Wyoming Supreme Court over the coming months.

‘A random occurrence’

The case stems from a May 2023 incident in Powell, in which Boni raced into town at over 140 mph and crashed into four vehicles on Coulter Avenue. Though the vehicles were damaged, no one was seriously injured. 

Boni was apparently suffering from paranoia and delusions, telling authorities at the time that he believed people were after him and had planted some kind of explosive device in his Jetta.

Simpson later described the incident as “a random occurrence as opposed to his running for law enforcement.”

A state psychiatrist later concluded that Boni had been suffering from a mental illness or deficiency that “would grossly and demonstrably impair his perception or understanding of reality.” Though Park County prosecutors asserted Boni had committed multiple crimes — including two felony counts of aggravated assault — Dr. Crystal Redding concluded that Boni’s mental condition had left him unable to appreciate the wrongness of what he was doing.

Redding indicated that Boni could be found not guilty by reason of mental illness or deficiency. However, then-Deputy Park County Prosecuting
Attorney Jack Hatfield disputed the findings and sought a second opinion.

Hatfield had been pursuing at least a 10-year prison sentence in the case; because Boni had two prior felony convictions from a couple decades earlier, and because the aggravated assault qualified as a violent offense, Hatfield was able to charge Boni as a “habitual criminal.” The designation carries a mandatory prison sentence of 10-50 years.

Ultimately, Blatt, Boni’s family and Boni decided to strike a deal with Hatfield in which the prosecutor withdrew the habitual criminal enhancement and Boni agreed to accept a nine- to 10-year prison sentence.

But when the sentencing hearing arrived in August 2024, Boni continued to insist he was innocent and that his vehicle had somehow been taken out of his control.

“I hope everybody knows they’re sentencing me to something I didn’t do,” Boni said.

Simpson said then that “all of us wish there was another outcome and another alternative,” but he accepted the deal and imposed the prison time. 

Waiving a right

While defendants generally have the right to seek a modification of their sentence within a year, they usually agree to give up that right when they accept a plea deal. That was a term of Boni’s arrangement, and Simpson specifically warned that the defendant could not seek a modification.

“If you do so, it would be deemed void on its face based on this agreement,” Simpson told Boni last year.

Despite that, Boni petitioned the court for a lesser sentence in December and Simpson agreed to hear arguments over the course of several months.

Blatt argued in part that the prison sentence amounted to “cruel and unusual punishment,” given Boni’s mental health struggles and a lack of treatment in prison.

Earlier this year, Simpson agreed that “obviously there’s some humanitarian concerns which come into play.” He noted Boni’s crimes appeared to stem from mental health issues, and expressed concern that the defendant could “continue on with the same criminal pattern” if he didn’t receive treatment.

In contrast, if Boni received the help and medication he needs, “it would appear he would be a functioning member of society,” Simpson said in converting the sentence to probation.

But Park County prosecutors insisted that, regardless of the rationale, the court simply didn’t have the power to alter Boni’s sentence. The time to reject the deal was at the sentencing hearing last year, said Deputy County Attorney Larry Eichele, not after the judge approved it.

“You cannot now go behind and change it simply because you think it’s unfair or unjust at this point,” Eichele told Simpson at a June hearing. “There’s simply no mechanism to allow for that, your honor.”

Simpson said then that he was considering “a sentence modification rather than a sentence reduction.”

However, when Simpson issued his written decision in August, he stated the opposite. He noted the plea agreement explicitly barred a sentence “modification,” but it “did not prohibit a sentence reduction” like the one he was approving.

In their petition to the Supreme Court earlier this month, the attorney general’s and county attorney’s offices described Simpson’s reasoning as “word play.”

“... the court’s ruling does not comport with the common understanding of the English language or this Court’s precedent,” Jenny Craig, Kristen Jones and Donovan Burton of the AG’s office wrote alongside Eichele. “A sentence reduction is a change to the sentence, which is by definition a modification.”

A rare hearing

It’s rare that the attorney general’s office seeks a writ of review from the Supreme Court — and even more rare that the court agrees to hear one.

There’s a high bar for such petitions, and one of Blatt’s arguments was that this dispute didn’t meet the criteria for a writ of review.

“The state has failed to meet its burden of the case at hand being such a rare and unusual case [that also] involves a constitutional issue,” he wrote in a filing this month.

The Supreme Court almost sided with Blatt, as they accepted the petition on a split, 3-2 vote.

Chief Justice Lynne Boomgaarden wrote that she and Justice Kari Gray wanted to deny the petition, but they were outvoted by Justices John Fenn, Robert Jarosh and Bridget Hill, who wanted to hear the dispute.

A Tribune review of Supreme Court records indicates it’s just the second time over the past decade that the court has accepted a petition for writ of review brought by the AG’s office in a criminal case; the court denied another 13 petitions during that time period.

It will be months before the Supreme Court issues a ruling in the case. In the meantime, Boni will remain on probation and the Park County Attorney’s Office will continue to present other cases to Simpson.

At a Sept. 11 hearing for a Cody man who’s charged with sexually abusing a child, Eichele said he wouldn’t be offering a plea deal in that case.

Beyond the significance of the allegations, “quite frankly, with some of the recent rulings with the court, we have trouble entering into plea agreements at this point,” Eichele told Simpson.

The case was tentatively set for a three-day trial in November.