Though his prosecution was complicated by a federal official’s misconduct, a Cody felon wound up receiving a multi-year prison sentence for possessing firearms.

Michael S. Hopper, 58, has been in either state or federal custody since mid-January, when agents with the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation reportedly caught him with meth, materials for distributing drugs and a pair of pistols.

The meth drew the attention of the Park County Attorney’s Office — which is still pursuing felony drug charges — while the Ruger LCP and Glock Model 43 caught the eye of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Cheyenne. Given Hopper’s nine prior felony convictions, federal prosecutors charged him with being a felon in possession of firearms.

The case ultimately resulted in a plea deal, and U.S. District Judge Alan Johnson handed Hopper 30 months in federal prison and three years of supervised release last month.

However, it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing — and the defendant recently filed notice that he’s appealing his sentence.

Of ‘slam dunks’ and ‘murderers’

Hopper was originally indicted by a federal grand jury in March. A couple months later, however, concerns surfaced about comments that then-interim U.S. Attorney Darin Smith — the office’s leader and a presidential appointee — had made to the jurors.

According to court filings, Smith told the panel that the cases they would hear that day involved “bad guys” and “murderers” who “did what you are going to hear about.” Smith also reportedly told the jurors that the government’s evidence was so strong that they’d be able to quickly return indictments.

After learning of the remarks, defense attorneys representing the nine individuals who were indicted that day raised objections. Federal Public Defender David Weiss, who represented Hopper, said Smith’s remarks were not only prejudicial but outrageous. For one thing, he noted that his client is not a murderer.

“By addressing the prospective grand jurors before voir dire with highly inflammatory declarations of the defendants’ guilt and explicitly pressuring them to return a true bill in a matter of minutes, the government obliterated the structural independence of the grand jury,” Weiss wrote.

He called Smith’s comments “flagrant misconduct” that merited the dismissal of Hopper’s indictment; nearly identical motions were filed in the other eight cases.

Responding on behalf of the prosecution, Assistant U.S. Attorney Christyne Martens disclosed additional potential problems, including that Smith had handed out business cards to the potential jurors and invited them to get in touch. She also said Smith told the jurors that all of the cases were “slam dunks.”

In the filing Martens acknowledged that Smith “was perhaps overly informal and friendly” with the grand jury and that his comments were “ill advised,” but she contended that “they were not as offensive as the Defendant contends when fairly viewed in context.”

For example, Martens said grand jurors went into the proceeding knowing the government believed all of the defendants should be indicted. Further, she said Smith’s comments were “rooted in truth,” given that some of the cases involved heinous crimes — a different defendant was facing a murder charge — and that the defendants were “undesirable in many respects.” Martens also said the grand jury was repeatedly reminded of their obligation to independently consider the evidence.

Temporarily dismissed

However, U.S. District judges Kelly Rankin, Scott Skavdahl and Johnson disagreed and dismissed the indictments on May 15. They said Smith’s comments were some of the first comments the jurors heard and “tainted everything the grand jury would hear afterwards.”

For one thing, the judges said Smith was wrong to paint all nine of the defendants with broad, negative strokes.

“This is incompatible with the protections of our grand jury system,” Rankin, Johnson and Skavdahl wrote, “individuals must be indicted on the allegations presented against them, not based on fearmongering about abstract ‘bad guys.’”

Further, Smith’s statements suggesting that the jurors might be able to return an indictment within a matter of minutes were similarly improper “under constitutional standards, ethical standards, [Department of Justice] policy, and case law,” the judges said.

The jurists also described Smith’s decision to hand out business cards and invite jurors to get in touch as an improper attempt to bond with the panel and curry its favor.

“These statements cannot be downplayed as ‘perhaps overly informal and friendly’ conservation,” the three judges wrote. “They were inflammatory and inappropriate.”

Prosecutors hold a special role in grand jury proceedings, they said, and Smith abused that position of trust and “impaired the grand jury’s integrity as an independent body.”

A few days later, on May 18, the U.S. Senate voted 46-43 along party lines to confirm Smith’s appointment as Wyoming’s U.S. attorney.

The defense attorneys had pushed the federal court to permanently dismiss the nine cases or bar the Wyoming U.S. Attorney’s Office from handling them; they also suggested the court formally discipline Smith. However, Rankin, Johnson and Skavdahl allowed the government to present the cases to a new grand jury and then “start with a clean slate.”

“The Court believes this remedy is adequate and the problematic conduct, limited to the U.S. Attorney, will not be repeated, and if so, it will be reported,” the judges wrote in a May 19 ruling.

Hopper and the other eight defendants were re-indicted the following day and he took a plea deal in July.

Punishment and still-pending charges

Hopper’s sentencing followed on Sept. 18 in Cheyenne, where Johnson issued the two-and-a-half-year sentence. He also declared the seized Ruger and Glock pistols to be the property of the federal government.

The judge recommended that Hopper serve his prison time at a low security facility in Littleton, Colorado, and strongly recommended he participate in its residential drug abuse treatment program.

However, one of Hopper’s defense attorneys filed notice on Friday that he’s appealing the judgment. No explanation of the appeal was included in the brief filing.

Additionally, Hopper still needs to deal with his pending drug charges in Park County. The county attorney’s office has charged him with separate felony counts of possession of meth with intent to distribute and conspiracy to possess meth with intent to deliver.

Judge Johnson ruled that Hopper should be allowed to serve his federal sentence at the same time as any sentence he receives on one of the two charges. However, the Park County Attorney’s Office was not a party to the arrangement, said Deputy County Attorney Marina Tucker, so it’s unclear as to what effect Johnson’s ruling will have on the state cases.

Hopper is expected to be returned to Park County’s custody soon.