## Facts

- LDO was a 15-year-old juvenile who ran away from a crisis center and began living with his aunt and her family.
- After LDO missed a community-service job, his aunt reported him as a runaway.
- When a police officer came to the aunt’s home to take the runaway report, the aunt noticed a CD player was missing.
- The next day, the officer stopped a vehicle in which LDO was a passenger; LDO was taken to a detention center.
- The following day, an officer questioned LDO about the missing CD player without giving Miranda warnings.
- LDO stated he took the CD player from his aunt’s home without permission and brought it to a friend’s home; the officer recovered the CD player from the friend.
- LDO was questioned again, still without Miranda warnings, and said he asked his friend to pawn the CD player.
- After charges were filed, LDO’s attorney did not contact LDO before the adjudicatory hearing. Counsel tried once to visit LDO at a detention facility, learned LDO had been transferred, and made no further attempt to see or speak with him.
- Counsel did not file a pretrial motion to suppress LDO’s statements to police.
- At the adjudicatory hearing, the State introduced LDO’s admissions. Defense counsel objected, but the juvenile court overruled the objection because counsel had not filed a timely suppression motion.
- LDO then testified that his aunt purchased the CD player, he took it from her home, brought it to his friend’s home, and intended to pawn it.
- The juvenile court adjudicated LDO delinquent, and LDO appealed, arguing ineffective assistance of counsel.

## Issues

1. Did LDO receive ineffective assistance of counsel when his attorney failed to file a timely pretrial motion to suppress LDO’s unwarned admissions and failed to communicate with him before the adjudicatory hearing?
2. If the juvenile court admitted LDO’s admissions because suppression was not timely raised, was any error “cured” because LDO later testified to substantially the same facts?
3. Did the juvenile court err in refusing to consider, for the first time at trial, a suppression issue that procedural rules required to be raised by pretrial motion?

## Decision

- The Wyoming Supreme Court reversed the delinquency adjudication and remanded for further proceedings.
- The court held that LDO was denied effective assistance of counsel in connection with the adjudication.
- The court concluded counsel’s failure to timely pursue suppression of LDO’s admissions (and the lack of meaningful pre-hearing communication with LDO) fell below constitutionally acceptable performance in a delinquency proceeding.
- The court rejected the argument that LDO’s later testimony automatically cured the harm from admitting the unwarned admissions; the resulting prejudice remained sufficient to require reversal.

## Legal Principles

- Juveniles in delinquency proceedings are entitled to the right to counsel, including constitutionally effective assistance of counsel, because delinquency adjudications may result in significant loss of liberty.
- Ineffective assistance claims are evaluated under the two-part Strickland test: (1) deficient performance measured against an objective standard of reasonable representation, and (2) prejudice, meaning a reasonable probability of a different outcome absent counsel’s errors.
- When procedural rules require suppression issues (including challenges to admissions or confessions) to be raised by pretrial motion, a lawyer’s failure to file a timely motion can forfeit meaningful review of admissibility and may constitute deficient performance.
- Prejudice is not automatically eliminated because a defendant later testifies to similar facts; testimony may be influenced by the earlier admission of damaging statements, and courts must evaluate whether counsel’s failure likely affected the outcome.
- A trial court may enforce pretrial-motion requirements by rejecting suppression arguments first raised during the adjudicatory hearing; counsel’s failure to comply with those requirements can be central to an ineffective assistance analysis.

## Conclusion

In *In the Interest of LDO*, the Wyoming Supreme Court reversed a juvenile delinquency adjudication because LDO’s lawyer did not adequately prepare for the adjudicatory hearing, did not meaningfully communicate with LDO, and—most importantly—failed to file a timely pretrial motion to suppress LDO’s unwarned police admissions, allowing those statements to be admitted without a suppression ruling; LDO’s later testimony repeating similar facts did not, by itself, eliminate the resulting prejudice.


In the Interest of LDO, 858 P.2d 553 (1993)