Justia Wisconsin Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

After Dimitri Henley was convicted of five counts of second degree sexual assault, Henley made several attempts to seek a new trial. Henley also moved Justice Roggensack to recuse herself from the review of his case. Roggensack denied the motion. The current appeal involved a motion for reconsideration of the Supreme Court's decision reversing the circuit court's order granting Henley a new trial. Henley argued that by denying him a new trial and by providing no court procedures for reviewing Justice Roggensack's decision not to recuse, the Court denied Henley's right to due process under the Fourteenth Amendment. The Supreme Court held (1) the motion for reconsideration met none of the criteria for granting a motion for reconsideration and was therefore denied; (2) determining whether to recuse is the sole responsibility of the individual justice for whom disqualification from participation is sought; (3) a majority of the Court does not have the power to disqualify a judicial peer from performing the constitutional functions of a Supreme Court justice on a case-by-case basis; and (4) Henley received due process. View "State v. Henley" on Justia Law

Defendant Esteban Gonzales was convicted of exposing a child to harmful material. The court of appeals affirmed the judgment of conviction. At issue on appeal was whether Defendant had shown there was a reasonable likelihood that a jury instruction misled the jury into believing that the State did not need to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant acted knowingly. The Supreme Court reversed, holding (1) that the jury was not instructed that it had to determine whether Defendant had knowingly exhibited the harmful material to the child, as distinguished from accidentally or unknowingly exhibiting harmful material to the child; and (2) Defendant established a reasonable likelihood that the jury applied the instruction in a way that relieved the State of its burden of proving every element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt and therefore applied the instruction in an unconstitutional manner. Remanded for a new trial. View "State v. Gonzalez" on Justia Law

After a jury trial, David Funk was found guilty of two counts of sexual assault. The circuit court vacated the jury verdict and ordered a new trial based on its post-trial discovery that one juror had not revealed during voir dire that she had been a victim of two prior incidents of sexual assault, finding that these experiences made the juror biased against Funk and deprived him of his constitutional right to an impartial jury. The court of appeals affirmed. On appeal, the Supreme Court reversed and reinstated the guilty verdict and judgment of conviction, concluding (1) the circuit court's finding that the juror was subjectively biased against Funk was unsupported by facts of record and was clearly erroneous; and (2) the circuit court's conclusion that the juror was objectively biased was erroneous because the facts necessary to ground a court's reasonable legal conclusion that a reasonable person in the juror's position could not be impartial were not developed in this case. View "State v. Funk" on Justia Law

A state trooper pulled defendant Deandre Buchanan's vehicle over when it was traveling in excess of the posted speed limit. The trooper saw Buchanan make a movement indicating he was putting an item out of sight beneath the driver's seat and observed that Buchanan was visibly nervous. The trooper also discovered Buchanan had an arrest record for violent crimes and drug trafficking. The officer then did a protective search of Buchanan and his vehicle and discovered plant material in the car. The officer seized the item, which was marijuana. Buchanan was convicted for possessing marijuana with intent to deliver. The court of appeals affirmed. Buchanan appealed, arguing the evidence he sought to suppress in the trial court was seized in violation of the federal and state constitutional provisions barring unreasonable search and seizure. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the initial protective search of Buchanan and his vehicle was valid; and (2) the piece of marijuana plant that the state trooper discovered on the car floor during the protective search was in plain view and there was probable cause to justify seizing it. Therefore there was no basis for suppressing the evidence. View "State v. Buchanan" on Justia Law

While she was present in defendant's apartment, police obtained consent from defendant Brian St. Martin's girlfriend to search the attic in defendant's apartment. Defendant, who was in police custody in a police van parked nearby, refused to consent to the search. The police proceeded to search the attic and found cocaine and currency. A warrant was subsequently obtained and after a second search police seized cell phones, currency, a scale, and documents. Defendant was later charged based on the evidence seized in the searches. Defendant pleaded guilty and was convicted. Defendant then appealed the court's order denying his motion to suppress the evidence. The Supreme Court affirmed, finding that the rule regarding consent to search a shared dwelling in Georgia v. Randolph, which states that a warrantless search cannot be justified when a physically present resident expressly refuses consent, does not apply where the resident remains in close physical proximity to the residence but was not physically present at the residence. Instead, the applicable rule is the one stated in United States v. Matlock, which holds that a co-tenant's consent to search is valid as against the absent, nonconsenting co-tenant. View "State v. St. Martin" on Justia Law

This case involved litigation expenses under Wis. Stat. 32.28(3)(d) in a condemnation proceeding between defendant and plaintiffs, the condemnees, when defendant initiated condemnation proceedings against the condemnees under Wis. Stat. 32.06 for an easement to construct an electrical transmission line across the condemnees' property. At issue was whether litigation expenses should be awarded when an appeal was taken from a negotiated price recorded in a certificate of compensation. The court held that an owner who accepted the negotiated price under section 32.06(2a), timely appealed that price, and subsequently received an award from the county condemnation commission that exceeded the thresholds under section 32.28, should be awarded litigation expenses. The court also considered, but was not persuaded by various other arguments defendant made criticizing the circuit court's and the court's interpretation of section 32.06(a) and section 32.28(3)(d) that the condemnees in the present case should be awarded litigation expenses.

Defendant, 14-years-old at the time of the offense, was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide and physical abuse of a child for the death of a 13-year-old. At issue was whether defendant's sentence of life imprisonment without parole was cruel and unusual in violation of the Eighth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 6 of the Wisconsin Constitution and, in the alternative, whether defendant's sentence should be modified. The court affirmed the sentence, applying a two-step approach employed by the United States Supreme Court in Graham v. Florida, and held that defendant failed to demonstrate that there was a national consensus against sentencing 14-year-olds to life imprisonment without parole when the crime was intentional homicide and that, in the exercise of its own independent judgment, the punishment was not categorically unconstitutional. The court also held that defendant's sentence was not unduly harsh or excessive; that defendant had not demonstrated clear and convincing evidence that the scientific research on adolescent brain development to which he referred constituted a "new factor;" and that defendant had not demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that the circuit court actually relied on the religious beliefs of the victim's family when imposing defendant's sentence. Accordingly, the court affirmed defendant's sentence of life imprisonment without parole.

Defendant was convicted of first-degree reckless injury while armed and being a felon in possession of a firearm. At issue was whether a fact-finder, in determining whether a defendant acted with utter disregard of human life, should give his conduct after a crime less weight than his conduct before and during the incident. Also at issue was whether there was a reasonable likelihood that the jury applied the circuit court's supplemental jury instruction in an unconstitutional manner. The court held that, in an utter disregard analysis, a defendant's conduct was not assigned more or less weight whether the conduct occurred before, during, or after the crime; and when evaluating whether a defendant acted with utter disregard for human life, a fact-finder should consider any relevant evidence in regard to the totality of the circumstances. The court also held that defendant had not established a reasonable likelihood that the jury applied the supplemental instruction in an unconstitutional manner where the instruction did not mislead the jury into believing that it could not consider defendant's relevant after-the-fact conduct in its determination on utter disregard for human life. Accordingly, the court reversed the court of appeals decision and remanded the case to allow that court to decide the other claims defendant raised before it.

Petitioner sought review of an unpublished decision of the court of appeals affirming a circuit court order denying her postconviction motion. At issue was whether the previously unknown information about petitioner's mental health, her addiction issues, and her traumatic upbringing constituted new factors that justified modification of her sentence. Also at issue was whether, in the alternative, petitioner received ineffective assistance of counsel when her attorney failed to investigate or present these factors to the circuit court during sentencing. The court held that petitioner had not presented any new factor that justified modification of her sentence; that the facts related to petitioner's mental health did not constitute a new factor where her mental health issues were known to the circuit court and taken into consideration at the time it imposed sentence; and that the circuit court appropriately exercised its discretion when it concluded that facts related to petitioner's addiction issues and her traumatic upbringing did not justify sentence modification. The court also held that petitioner had not demonstrated that she received ineffective assistance of counsel where she had not shown that her attorney's alleged shortcomings were prejudicial and that a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would be different.

Defendant appealed a conviction of first degree intentional homicide while using a dangerous weapon where the murdered man made statements to an ambulance driver and a police officer before he died that gave a brief description of the assailant ("Somerville statements"). At issue was whether the admission of the Sommerville statements and the prior statements of two recanting witnesses violated defendant's constitutional rights to confrontation and due process. The court affirmed the court of appeal's holding that the Somerville statements were properly admitted and did not violate defendant's Sixth Amendment right to confront witnesses nor his corresponding right under the Wisconsin Constitution. The court also held that the failure to exclude prior inconsistent statements of recanting witnesses did not violate due process where the statements were admitted without objection and consistent with controlling Wisconsin law. The court further held that defendant was not prejudiced by his counsel's failure to urge the court to apply the law of another jurisdiction, nor can the circuit court be said to have committed plain error when it applied what was then the controlling law in Wisconsin.