On Point: F. Ch. 943: Against property

State v. Carmen L. Doss, 2008 WI 93, reversing 2007 WI App 208
For Doss: Robert R. Henak

Issue/Holding:

¶57      Next, we address Doss’s argument that there was insufficient evidence to support her conviction under Wisconsin Statute § 943.20(1)(b). Doss correctly recites the elements the State was required to establish to obtain a conviction: that (1) she had possession of money as a result of her position as a personal representative of her father’s estate;

State v. George W. Lis, Sr., 2008 WI App 82
For Lis: Jefren E. Olsen, SPD, Madison Appellate

Issue/Holding:

¶7        As relevant here, a person violates Wis. Stat. § 943.201(2) when he or she

intentionally uses, attempts to use, or possesses with intent to use any personal identifying information … of an individual … (a) To obtain credit, money, goods, services, employment, or any other thing of value or benefit.

State v. George W. Lis, Sr., 2008 WI App 82
For Lis: Jefren E. Olsen, SPD, Madison Appellate

Issue/Holding:

¶1        … The key question in this appeal is whether Lis’s crimes continued after the fraudulent accounts he opened were closed. We conclude they did not. ……

¶8        In this case, Lis’s offense continued into 2003 and 2004 only if he received a “thing of value or benefit” after the accounts were closed in 2000.  

State v. Kenneth W. Lippold, 2008 WI App 130, PFR filed 8/18/08
For Lippold: Thomas J. Nitschke

Issue/Holding: On a charge of receiving stolen property, venue may rest in the county where the underlying theft occurred (and, provable by circumstantial rather than direct evidence):

¶16   Extrapolating from the holding in Swinson, we conclude that because the crime of receiving stolen property requires more than two acts,

State v. Dale C. Ploeckelman, 2007 WI App 31
For Ploeckelman: Rand Krueger

Issue/Holding:

¶17   Wisconsin Stat. § 943.20(1)(d) prohibits a type of fraud, which is addressed by both criminal and civil tort law. See State v. Timblin, 2002 WI App 304, ¶31, 259 Wis. 2d 299, 657 N.W.2d 89. While there are no common law crimes, this court has consulted civil tort law as an aid to interpreting the criminal fraud statutes.

State v. Dale C. Ploeckelman, 2007 WI App 31
For Ploeckelman: Rand Krueger

Issue/Holding:

¶18   A representation can be acts or conduct. See Stecher v. State, 168 Wis. 183, 186, 169 N.W. 287 (1918). In Kaloti Enters., Inc. v. Kellogg Sales Co., 2005 WI 111, 283 Wis. 2d 555, 699 N.W.2d 205, our supreme court laid out the circumstances where a failure to disclose can constitute a representation.

State v. Pamela L. Peters, 2003 WI 88, on certification
For Peters: Terry W. Rose

Issue/Holding:

¶1. This case is before the court on certification from the court of appeals on a question of first-impression regarding the scope of Wisconsin’s identity theft statute, Wis. Stat. § 943.201(1999-2000). Specifically, the question is whether a defendant who misappropriates another’s identity and uses it during an arrest and in subsequent bail proceedings to obtain lower bail has done so “to obtain credit,

State v. Dale H. Chu, 2002 WI App, PFR filed 4/23/02
For Chu: Andrew Shaw

Issue/Holding: Evidence held sufficient, despite disagreement of experts on how fire was started; the jury was required to determine whether defendant intentionally started the fire, not specifically how it was set.

¶44      Chu may instead be arguing that the verdicts should be overturned because the State’s experts could not agree on the precise method of starting the fire,

State v. Todd W. Timblin, 2002 WI App 304
For Timblin: Alex Flynn

Issue: Whether agency necessarily becomes an element of theft by fraud, § 943.20(1)(d), when the defendant obtains the property through an intermediary.

Holding: The intermediary must actually be an agent before an agency relationship is necessary to state’s proof. Where, as here, the intermediary acted as a mere “conduit” for delivering money between defrauded victims and defendant —

State v. Eileen M. Entringer, 2001 WI App 157
For Entringer: William E. Schmaal, SPD, Madison Appellate

Issue: Whether, for purposes of the forgery statute, a person can falsely make a postal order by writing in the name of someone else as the payer.

Holding: Because forgery applies only to falsehoods that materially affect the document’s legal efficacy; and because “the money order was as good as cash,” listing another name as payer “had nothing to do with the genuineness of the execution of the money order” and “does not constitute ‘falsely making’ the money order.” ¶17.