Casper Star-Tribune from Casper, Wyoming • 11

fi star Wyoming Bl Thursday, December 31, 1992 Staf-Tfibuna, Casjer Wyo Judge Taylor lias handled high-profile trials 41 i Heard several murder cases rancher and millionaire John Dor-ranee to remove from the Mute hybrid deer Dor ranee brought to Wyoming as part of his effort to csiuhlish a game ranch at his place near Devils Tower. In that ruling, delivered in January 1992, Taylor said that Dor-rance had imported the animals to his ranch without first obtaining permits from the state Game and Fish Commission. In 1987, Tay lor sentenced I. die Howard, a former Nutronu County treasurer, to one and one-half years in prison for misusing public money, lie later reduced the sentence minimum to nine months. Taylor's decisions have also been overruled by the high court on occasion.

In 1986, the high court overruled a conviction by a jury in Taylor's court of Douglas doctor Robert Schmunk of first-degree murder for the drug overdose of his wife. The Supreme Court ruled Schmunk did not receive a fair trial primarily because the trial court allowed the jury to sec a videotape in which Schmunk refused a polygraph test. The Supreme Court said Schmunk was entitled to a retrial. Schmunk was retried and convicted, again with Taylor presiding. By the Star-Tribune staff DOUGLAS Judge William Taylor has handled some of Wyoming's highest profile cases from his seat on the bench of the 8th Judicial District Court.

Gov. Mike Sullivan day appointed Taylor to the Wyoming Supreme Court to fill a vacancy created by voters' rejection of Justice Walter Urbigk.it in November. Taylor's cases in district court include several prominent murder trials and sentencing hearings, a case involving hybrid deer illegally imported to Wyoming by Crook County rancher John Dor-rance, and the embezzlement trial of former Natrona County Treasurer Edie Howard. One of Taylor's most recent rulings was delivered last July, when he sentenced convicted killer Roy Lee Engberg to life imprisonment for the 1981 murder of a Wells Fargo guard in Casper. "This court is not opposed to the death sentence," Taylor said af the time, "but 1 do find problems in its application." In rendering that decision, Taylor cited mitigating circumstances in the case, including Engberg's reported abuse as a child, his good prison record and his potential for tel.

Hut that conviction was overturned in federal court in 1 986 on grounds that Osborn was denied effective counsel during his trial. The O'Briant case came before Taylor in February 1989 when Osborn and his attorney struck a plea bargain with prosecutors. Osburn's attorney said at that time that his client feared the possibility of getting a death sentence if the case were re-tried. "I think that Mr. Osborn's concerns are well taken," Judge Taylor told the attorney.

The judge expressed similar sentiments in late 1988 when he ordered Gordon Gallington committed indefinitely to the Wyoming Slate Hospital. Gallington successfully used an insanity defense in a first-degree murder trial in which he was accused of killing his best friend in a 1987 shooting in Casper. "Mr. Gallington is not to be released without a hearing before this court," Taylor said after ordering the man's commitment. After the hearing, he said Gallington would never get out of the state hospital "as long as I'm alive." Early this year, Taylor ordered Slur-1 nhunc hie Oil priMliiclioii: Four (IcuUm oorurml in l'92 Job-related fatalities hi Wyoming preventable Property taxes due today in Carbon, Amoco dispute CHEYENNE (AP) Each of the 19 job-related fatalities in Wyoming in 1992 were preventable, according to a study commissioned by the Wyoming Department of I lealth.

"We have a problem and that Emblem is we have the second-ighest occupational fatality rate in the country," said Dr. Stanley Music, head of the Division of Preventive Medicine. The deaths were the result of human error, and most happened because lower-level workers continually took unnecessary risks, he said. For example. Music noted that a Carbon County sheep hand in June stayed outside to watch a thunderstorm instead of remaining in the cabin.

He was struck by lightning. Four of the 1 9 deaths happened in labor intensive fields like agriculture, oil production and construction, the study said. Three died in plane crashes on the job and another died in a car accident. Jim Rolf, who conducted the study, said awareness is the key to preventing workplace casualties. "Most of these tragedies are a combination of circumstances," he said.

"None of these incidents were flagrant safety violations. "The lesson to be drawn is that everything we do in our jobs as well as in our homes and in our automobiles can be the last thing we ever do unless we look carefully at the circumstances that surround us," he wrote in the summary. Rolf studied the 19 deaths through a $50,000 grant from the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health. Carbon County had the most job deaths with four, followed by Campbell County with three, and two each in Laramie, Fremont. Sweetwater and Uinta counties.

Lincoln, Park, Sublette and Washakie counties each had one fatality. Steve Foster, administrator of the Wyoming Occupational Health and Safety Division, said his agency investigated 10 workplace deaths this year, compared to 12 in 1991. The division does not have the jurisdiction to investigate mine, rail, aviation or highway fatalities, he noted. Foster agreed that worker attitudes, such as the macho feeling of construction and oil drilling workers, was a big factor in the death count. "I feel if we could bring about a change in attitude with those employees so they'd think about their own well-being, then the only accidents we'd have would truly be those beyond our control." Supreme Court: No AG bias in highway billboard decision CHEYENNE (AP) An administrative hearing in which staff members of the attorney general's office served as prosecutor and hearing officer was not necessarily biased, Wyoming's Supreme Court ruled Wednesday.

The court overturned a district court ruling vacating a Highway Commission order that Vince Ford remove four outdoor advertising signs he erected without obtaining a commission permit. Ford had been notified in June 1991 that he would have to obtain a permit for the signs or take them down. Ford asked for an administrative hearing on the issue before the commission and was told one would be held in August 1991, with Lawrence Bobbitt III, a senior assistant attorney general and the commission's attorney, serving as the hearing officer. Ford objected to Bobbitt serving as the hearing officer since he also served as the commission's attorney. The commission agreed to replace Bobbitt with Larry Donovan, another senior assistant attorney general.

Milo Vukelich, an assistant attorney general, was to act as the prosecutor in the hearing. But Ford did not attend the hearing and was ordered in September 1991 to remove the signs. A state district court vacated the order, agreeing with Ford's arguments that attorney general's staff members could not serve as both the hearing officer and prosecutor in the hearing. But justices said Ford failed to prove the arrangement biased or prejudiced the hearing against him, noting that the commission's chairman served as the presiding officer at the hearing. "The attorney general did not purport to act as the presiding officer, but, rather, acted as a hearing officer or hearing the ruling said.

"The record also demonstrates that the commission reached its decision on the basis of evidence presented to it. Absent an on-the-record demonstration of prejudice of some sort we are compelled to hold that the hearing conducted by the commission was not fatally flawed Problems could surface if the attorney general's office prepares the case for a state agency and provides a staff member to serve as a hearing officer, the court said. But it noted such problems will be avoided in the future with the Legislature's creation of an office of administrative hearings to provide independent hearings officers for such disputes. "That should serve to relieve the concerns we have addressed as well as the need, or the perceived need, for the attorney general to perform the functions of the hearing officer or hearing advisor," the ruling said. The court ordered the case returned to state district court for the entry of an order affirming the commission's decision.

But Justice Joseph Cardine, in a dissenting opinion, said he felt the hearing officer and prosecutor in such hearings should be from different state agencies. "I would not allow a hearing in which the attorney general acted as both prosecutor and judge," he wrote. "This for the same reason that we do not allow the prosecutor and judge in our court system to be the same person or even from the same branch of government." rehabilitation. Taylor also presided when Converse County jury found Dennis Wood innocent of possessing a weapon with intent to do bodily harm in connection with the shooting death of Denny "Smokey" Lyles, outside an Evansvillc bur. One of Taylor's most recent criminal cases involved Ther-monolis teenager James Michael Wiley's convictions in the shooting death's of Wiley's stepmother and three brothers.

Wiley plead guilty, and Taylor sentenced the youth to three life sentences in the Wyoming State Penitentiary. In 1990, Taylor sentenced Kevin Osborn to two consecutive life terms in connection with the death of a California woman and the stabbing of her son in 1 982. In 1989, under a plea arrangement, he sentenced Osborn to a life term in a separate 1982 murder case. Osborn originally had been sentenced to death for that killing after pleading guilty to a charge of first-degree murder for beating Jimmy O'Briant to death with a cowboy boot in an Evanston mo- spokesman at Lehman's office Tuesday said the judge was out of town until Monday. Amoco, meanwhile, has taken its concerns to Gov.

Mike Sullivan. In an Oct. 29 letter and a personal meeting in November with Sullivan, the company outlined concerns. "We think that Amoco has not been treated consistent with constitutional and statutory requirement in Wyoming in the situation," Rigg said, Since 1 983 Amoco has incurred more than $83 million in property taxes in Carbon County more than $1 16 million in Sweetwater County and more than $70 million in Fremont County, according to the letter. Included in those figures are some but-of-period payments for additional taxes due in 1985.

The out-of-period payments were additional taxes due in 1985 including $900,000 to Carbon County, $600,000 to Fremont County and $700,000 to Sweetwater County, Rigg said. Those payments were made as result of routine internal audits conducted by Amoco. At the time those payments were made, Fremont County put its receipts into an escrow account, but Carbon and Sweetwater Counties did not, Rigg said. Similar internal audits by Amoco since 1986 led the company to file additional amended returns in the three counties. Under Wyoming state law, the Department of Revenue has to certify oil and gas sales, before the county can change any property tax, Rigg said.

When Amoco filed amendments on production for 1 986, the state Department of Revenue did not rule on them until 1991. During the intervening time, the three counties continued to tax Amoco at the higher values, Rigg said. "During that time period we estimate we nave overpaid our property taxes by about $1.9 million in Carbon, $609,000 in Fremont and $400,000 in Sweetwater," he said. When Amoco asked for the refund earlier this year, Fremont County which had its 1985 payment from Amoco in an escrow account complied. But Carbon and Sweetwater did not.

Washam said that the destroyed trailer was occupied by Chuck and Tracy Lee Bringham and their 9-year-old twin sons Derrick and Brandon, and that the family lost everything they owned. The parents also suffered minor burns, and were treated and released by Sweetwater County Memorial Hospital, he said. The Bringhams and the occupants of the two adjacent trailers Mike and Holly Wiebe and Kathy Hilke were all evacuated by Red Cross volunteers to a local motel for the rest of the night, Washam said. The county fire official said that the cause of the fire is as yet undetermined. He added that there is "nothing suspicious" about the fire's origin.

By CANDY MOULTON Star-Tribune correspondent RAWLINS Carbon County officials say they are waiting to see. what Amoco Production Co. plans to do in light of an ongoing dispute over property tax payments. The company faces a tax payment deadline today, but has also filed lawsuit over back taxes, claiming refunds from Carbon and Sweetwater counties totaling more than $2 million. "We expect to pay appropriate taxes in full compliance with Wyoming statues," Amoco Senior Public and Government Affairs Representative Jack Rigg said.

However, he would not say whether a check for the full $2.9 million will be sent to Carbon County. Carbon County Deputy Attorney Wade Waldrip said he had no indication whether Amoco would pay the 1992 taxes by today's deadline. Carbon County School District No. I Supt. Jon Fisher said school officials are closely watching the situation because the bulk of the money involved in the tax refund case would come from district revenues.

Amoco owes $2,919,913 in 1992 taxes, a spokesman at the Carbon County Treasurer's office said. However, the company has protested earlier tax payments and is requesting a refund from Carbon County of nearly 1 .9 million. Amoco also is seeking $186,592 from Sweetwater County, records show. Under Wyoming law taxes can be paid in two equal installments due Nov. 10 and May 10 or in one payment due Dec.

31. The refund requested by Amo-xo is in limbo until a decision is reached by Carbon County Second Judicial District Court Judge Larry Lehman. During a December hearing before Lehman, Amoco argued it is entitled to the refund for overpayment of taxes in 1986. Carbon County has maintained the refund request was not filed in a timely manner and therefore shouldn't be allowed. Waldrip said county officials had hoped for a ruling on the issue by Lehman before today.

A Proposed bill requires lobbyists to list spending Snowmobile guides given access on Bridger-Teton forest are) held in. we would do ourselves good to let the sunshine pour in," Prevcdcl said. "I don't believe there's anything wrong going on, but I think it would be a good idea to have this disclosure to allay any misgivings on the part of the public." Rick Robitaille of the Petroleum Association of Wyoming, said the measure ould just be an unnecessary burden. "It is ridiculous to have part-time lobbyists for a part-time Legislature submit to Washington-style regulations," he said. Campground in the Shoshone National Forest, 10 miles southwest of Lander, heads south ov er Louis Lake Loop Road to Grannier Meadows.

It turns west over Sioux Pass and then northwest towards Big Sandy, continuing northwest to Pincdalc. At Pincdalc. the trail continues northwest to Cora, then north towards the Green River Guest Ranch and oxer to Union Pass to The Line Shack. It then proceeds northwest tow ards Togwotec Pass, following local roads to Buffalo Valley, where it currently ends. 1 he trail is proposed for extension through Grand Teton National Park to join other trails currently in use in Yellowstone National Park, ending in West Yellowstone.

According to Forest Service documents, the public agencies decided to allow commercial use of the trail to provide sen ices for visitors otherwise excluded from the trail. 1 he documents also note the trail will add economic diversity for the communities neighboring the trail access points. Members of the public want guided trips on the trail and it "is not a long-term usage of the land and resources." Forest Service documents stale. ROCK SPRINGS (AP) A state senator is proposing legislation that would require lobbyists to report what they spend and how they spend it while lobbying. Sen.

Frank Prevcdcl. SD12, D-Rock Springs, is proposing legislation that would require lobbyists to disclose every expense incurred while lobbying, including food, entertainment, living costs and traveling costs. In addition, the measure would require lobbyists to report gifts and loans given to legislators. "With the esteem (politicians cerns in the monitoring plan for the trail. Winland said the WWF and other conservation groups will be watching the impacts snowmo-biling has on the trail and its environment.

He said the WWF wants to insure that the "monitoring gets done as noted in the plan." Other concerns are affects on wintering animals in the trail area, moose, elk and deer for example. Hew itt said monitoring of proper use of the trail should not be a problem She said the trail was developed for snowmobile use only, she said. It is routed over sw amp land in places and ould not be appropriate for warm weather use. The trail meets the approval of wildlife officials regarding habitat protection, Hewitt added. The Continental Divide Snowmobile Trail as developed by linking existing trails and roads that were open to motorized snowmobile use.

The trail starts at Bruce's TRAIL I. Wind whips flames in Rock Springs mobile home fire said the organization is "very pleased" with the forest's decision and that the association had been working toward this goal for three years. Hewitt said to ensure safety of visitors unfamiliar ith the 360-mile trail, guides would be an asset. Mark Winland. board president of the Wyoming Wildlife Federation, said that group was concerned about the proper monitoring of regulations for the trail.

Another WWF concern is with the amount of traffic on the trail, Winland said. Currently, there is no limit to the number of noncommercial snowmobilers on the trail. He said the Forest Service has addressed his organization's con- SNOWMOBILE By LAUREN McKEEVER Star-Tribune correspondent JACKSON Bridger-Teton National Forest officials have decided to issue a limited amount of permits allowing guided snowmobile trips on the Continental Divide Snowmobile Trail. The decision, announced Monday, gives snowmobile outfitters access to the trail completed in 1989 for non-commercial snowmobile use. The trail runs from Lander to Pincdalc and eventually to Buffalo Valley near Moran.

"It's a nationally known trail," and people want to use it, said Scott Fitzwilliams, a Bridger-Teton spokesman. "We're pleased to be able to issue permits." The permits issued for a three-year period starting in January 1993, will allow a total of 3.600 guided snowmobile visits. Three permits will be issued to outfitters in Buffalo Valley and Lander, along ith 3-6 permits issued to outfitters in Dubois and Pincdalc. Each of those permits has a limit of 1.200 visits for the trail, Fitzwilliams said. Linda Hewitt, chairwoman of the Continental Divide Snowmobile Trail Association in Lander ROCK SPRINGS A fire early Tuesday completely destroyed one mobile home and damaged two others on Purple Sage Road, west of Rock Springs, according to Sweetwater County Fire Warden Dennis Washam.

Washam said Wednesday that 35 to 40 mph winds "enhanced the flames considerably," and that the trailer was a wall of flames by the time county and Rock Springs fire engines and firefighters reached the scene at 1 2:30 a.m. A Dodge Dakota in a parking space adjacent to the destroyed trailer was also totally burned, Washam said. Additionally, there mas minor damage to the trailer on the right of the burned trailer, and extensive damage to the trailer on the other side, he said..