On Point: D. Ineffective Assistance

State v. Gary R. Schumacher, 2019AP1261-CR, District 4, 5/7/20, (1-judge opinion, ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Schumacher was convicted of OWI with a prohibited alcohol content in connection with an accident at 8:45 p.m. His blood was drawn at 10:56 p.m., and tests showed a BAC of .171, well above his legal limit of 0.08. The sole issue on appeal was whether Schumacher’s trial counsel had adequately cross-examined Kristin Drewieck, a chemist with the Wisconsin State Laboratory of Hygiene about her estimates of Schumacher’s BAC at 8:45 p.m.

State v. Ronald Eugene Provost, 2020 WI App 21; case activity (including briefs)

It’s unclear why this opinion is recommended for publication. Best guess is that is provides a (rather thin) gloss on the “systemic breakdown” exception to the rule that delays attributable to defense counsel don’t weigh in favor of a speedy trial violation. The court cites and adopts a statement from a New Mexico court that defense counsel’s delays represent a “systemic breakdown” only when they are caused by “problems that are both institutional in origin and debilitating in scope.” (¶40). Sounds like a slightly longer way of saying “systemic breakdown,” no?

State v. Phyllis M. Schwersenska, 2018AP1619-CR, District 4, 4/30/20 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Schwersenska was convicted of embezzling money from a joint bank account she held with her daughter, H.R. The court of appeals holds trial counsel wasn’t ineffective for failing to raise the defense that, as joint owner of the account, none of the money in the account belonged solely to H.R. and so she can’t be guilty of theft from H.R.

State v. Quaid Q. Belk, 2019AP982-CR, District 1, 4/21/20 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Belk moved for a new trial based on multiple allegations of ineffective assistance of trial counsel. The circuit court denied the motion without a hearing, but the court of appeals sends the case back for a hearing on one of the claims.

State v. Richard A. Boie, 2019AP520, 3/5/20, District 4 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Boie appeals his jury-trial conviction for repeated sexual assault of the same child and the denial of his postconviction motion. He raises issues arising from the videotaped interview of his accuser, admitted under Wis. Stat. § 908.08. On the video, the then-six-year-old described assaults occurring when she was four and five years old. At trial, though, the now-nine-year old testified she couldn’t remember some of the things she spoke about in the video. Boie argues the statutory guidelines for admission weren’t met, and separately that his lawyer was ineffective for not moving for mistrial once the memory problems became clear.

State v. Ryan C. Diehl, 2020 WI App 16; case activity (including briefs)

At Diehl’s trial for operating with a blood-alcohol content exceeding .02, the state asked the arresting officer and Diehl himself multiple questions that invited the jury to infer he had multiple OWI convictions. Because these questions were irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial, trial counsel was ineffective for failing to object to them, and Diehl is entitled to a new trial.

Iron County DHS v. N.H.-D., 2019AP1520, District 3, 2/12/20 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity

N.H.-D.’s claims that the termination of her parental rights violated various due process rights, but those claims are forfeited and undeveloped. Her claim of ineffective assistance of trial counsel is meritless. 

State v. Jacqueline A. Ziriax Anderson, 2018AP2410-CR, District 3, 2/11/20 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

The state offered Anderson a deal: plead to OWI 2nd and it would recommend the minimum mandatory penalties. The state made that offer because the arresting officer had resigned from the department due to some “mental health issues” and the prosecutor apparently wasn’t eager to call him as a witness. Anderson’s lawyer found this out immediately before Anderson entered her plea—but didn’t tell Anderson. She learned about it afterward. (¶¶3-4, 8-11). While trial counsel performed deficiently by failing to tell Anderson that information before she pled, that doesn’t entitle her to plea withdrawal because she fails to show she would have insisted on going to trial if trial counsel would have told her, as required by State v. Bentley, 201 Wis. 2d 303, 312, 548 N.W.2d 50 (1996).

State v. Carrie E. Counihan, 2020 WI 12, 2/13/20 modifying and affirming an unpublished court of appeals decision, 2017AP2265; case activity (including briefs)

This case is the companion to State v. Coffee, which, though argued on the same day, came out a few weeks earlier and failed, in particularly confusing fashion, to announce any binding rule. This case does make a rule:

We conclude that where previously unknown information is raised by the circuit court at the sentencing hearing, a defendant does not forfeit a direct challenge to the use of the information by failing to object at he sentencing hearing. Under the facts of this case, Counihan appropriately raised the alleged error in a postconviction motion.

(¶4).

Terez Cook v. Brian Foster, Warden, 7th Circuit Court of Appeals No. 18-2214, 1/29/2020

Pursuing a federal writ of habeas corpus is always a long shot; in non-capital cases fewer than 1% of petitions are successful. Terez Cook gets it done here, convincing the Seventh Circuit his lawyer was ineffective at his trial for a home-invasion robbery (and that the Wisconsin court of appeals’ decision to the contrary was not just wrong, but unreasonable). The federal court is puzzled by a few aspects of our state court’s denial of Cook’s claims. But the thing that seems to push that denial over the line into unreasonableness–AEDPA‘s stringent requirement for habeas relief–is that it got a crucial fact wrong. The state court’s opinion relies on a confession by Cook–a confesssion for which there’s apparently no evidence. How did our court go astray? Well, the state described the (non-existent) confession in its brief, and then Cook’s direct-appeal counsel apparently didn’t check the facts, and neither did the court of appeals.