Cody Roberts case proceeds as judge rules wolf’s treatment not covered by predator exemption

A district court judge who hinted last week he wasn’t persuaded by arguments for dismissing the animal cruelty case against Cody Roberts filed an order Tuesday explaining why he was instead sending the high-profile case toward a trial. 

District Court Judge Richard Lavery’s six-page order stated that “the plain language” of an exemption for predators like wolves written into Wyoming’s animal cruelty laws didn’t provide “a blanket license” to do anything to an animal. The “specific, enumerated exemptions” are for “hunting, capture, killing or destruction” of predators “in any manner” not otherwise illegal.

At a hearing last week, Roberts’ attorney Robert Piper described the entirety of the wolf’s time in Roberts’ possession as being an extended period of “capture.”

Lavery didn’t agree in his response to a motion to dismiss the case.

“[T]his case does not arise out of the capture of the wolf,” Lavery wrote, “but out of Defendant’s alleged conduct after capturing the wolf but before it was killed.” 

The judge quoted legal precedent that established courts are “not at liberty to add words to a statute that the legislature chose to omit.”

Roberts allegedly acquired a wolf by striking it with a snowmobile until “barely conscious” on Feb. 29, 2024. Photos from that night showed him posing for pictures with the wolf and even kissing it. The wolf’s behavior suggests that it was gravely injured, according to biologists who’ve reviewed video of the muzzled animal while it was prone and listless on the floor of the Green River Bar. 

The incident touched off a wave of global outrage that inundated Sublette County with threats and caused Wyoming state agencies to suspend social media accounts peppered with upset comments.

During the initial law enforcement response, Wyoming Game and Fish Department wardens cited Roberts with a $250 discretionary fine for possessing wildlife instead of sending him to court in pursuit of steeper charges. 

At the time, the state agency contended what Piper is now arguing: That predatory animal species are exempt from animal cruelty statutes. 

Sublette County law enforcement officials disagreed. Last summer, prosecutor Clayton Melinkovich convened a grand jury that later indicted the 44-year-old Daniel resident for felony animal cruelty, punishable by up to two years imprisonment. He has pleaded not guilty and remains free on bond.

Roberts’ trial is scheduled to begin March 9.