DataWyoming  

*These factors track the process--i.e. the effort and obstacles--for obtaining data from individual states under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and appeals process. These factors do not measure the quality of the data; only the process of attempting to obtain the data.

Wyoming responded immediately to our FOIA request with an Excel spreadsheet of people incarcerated, but not specific to those convicted and sentenced for felony murder. Wyoming’s statutes are not specific for felony murder. Although we attempted to use publicly available web portals to identify individuals incarcerated under felony murder, as in most other states, Wyoming does not have a statute specifically codifying felony murder, which would make it easier to identify and isolate felony murder conviction data. Instead, as in most other states, felony murder is defined within its other murder statute and the publicly available conviction and sentence information did not distinguish felony murder from other murder convictions.

We appealed the FOIA results and asked for more specific data related to felony murder, but Wyoming did not send over anything specific to felony murder.

In Wyoming, felony murder is codified in the first degree murder statute (Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 6-2-101).

Prosecutors can charge and convict any person of murder without having to prove that they intended to cause another person’s death. Prosecutors must only prove that a person committed or attempted to commit a specified felony and a death occurs during the commission of the felony.

A conviction for felony murder carries a possible sentence of life, life without the possibility of parole, or death. Note, however, that a sentence of life is equivalent to life without the possibility of parole unless the Governor first commutes the sentence to a term of years.