Wyoming Legislature 2023: Judiciary Committee Takes On Fraud Prevention Bill

AARP Wyoming Photo

2023 Wyoming Legislature’s Judiciary Committee 
Committee Chairs (Click to meet the committee):
Senate - Bill Landen
House - Art Washut

Senate committee members Cale Case, Ed Cooper, Dan Furphy, Wendy Schuler

House committee members - Ken Chestek, Barry Crago, Jeremy Haroldson, Mark Jennings, Ember Oakley, Tony Neimiec, Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, Karlee Provenza.

Senator Bill Landen (pictured above) comes over from the Transportation and Military Affairs Committee to chair the Senate Judiciary Committee, while Rep. Art Washut advances from Vice Chair to the Chairmanship on the House side of the Judiciary Committee. For Landen, it is his third committee in six years, and he says his  long-time  friendship with his Casper colleague, Washut will help him with the  institutional knowledge regarding some of the bills that the committees will hear this session. As for Washut, he believes he has a great team in-place.

“As a new chair there is a lot that you don’t know, that you don’t know,” Washut says. “I have a really great team and I look forward to building relationships with the new members of the committee to make sure everyone is up to speed quickly.”

“Judiciary tends to be a very busy committee,” Landen says. “That is where a lot of personal bills go that deal with subjects like family law and other areas of the law. That tends to lead to a high volume of bills going to the committee.”

The Joint Judiciary Committee came into the 2023 session having voted to sponsor 17 bills during the Legislative interim. The committee’s new chairs say a number of those bills offer clean-up language to previous measures. However, the committees will hear some of the more fascinating debate this session as they try to determine what is trespassing where drones are concerned.

SF34 will ask if someone should be considered guilty of trespassing if they use a small unmanned aircraft to enter into the immediate reaches of the airspace over the private property of a landowners and the entry substantially interferes with the occupant’s use and enjoyment of the land.

“Some of this is to determine whether someone can look inside your second story window with a drone, and what your rights are for a situation like that,” Washut says. “The world is changing fast with the use of unmanned aircraft and we would be wise to get a handle on that.”

SF 32  will determine if you can fly a drone over penal institutions, such as prisons, or the Honor Farm in Fremont County. This interim, the committee heard much debate over whether drones could drop contraband to prisoners, and if those drones could or should be shot down. That question might seem easy, but the Wyoming Press Association would like more discussion around the press’ rights when it comes to  covering situations near a penal institution, such as fire or a riot using a drone.

Trespassing in the name of hunting has gotten much attention with the corner crossing case in Carbon County and the chairs say they are waiting for the courts to work out that issue, rather than take it on this session.. However, another bill seeks to make it easier to enforce trespassing by those who are seeking to hunt. SF56 would allow Game and Fish wardens to cite someone for trespassing if they cross private land to do it. Currently, that citation can only be done by a sheriff or deputy. 

An AARP Wyoming priority bill will also go into the 2023 session as a Judiciary Committee bill. Senate File 24, Financial Exploitation of Vulnerable Adults, was vetted through the Judiciary Committee this interim after failing to pass the House in the 2022 session. The bill would grant banks and credit unions civil immunity for delaying a transaction it believes fraudulent. 

“We heard a lot on the Financial Exploitation of Vulnerable Adults bill this interim,” says Washut. “Any time you have a bill that offers immunity, it is tough. You don’t want to go through and give too much leeway or too little that bill isn’t effective. We had a lot of debate and discussion on that bill and I’m sure we will have more during the session.”