On Point: 13. Due Process

Linda Metrish, Warden v. Burt Lancaster, USSC 12-547, 5/20/13

United States Supreme Court decision, reversing Lancaster v. Metrish, 683 F.3d 740 (6th Cir. 2012)

In a unanimous opinion issued only a month after oral argument, the Supreme Court holds that a state prisoner is not entitled to federal habeas relief based on the retroactive application of a state supreme court decision holding there is no diminished capacity defense under state law.

State v. Michael Lock, 2013 WI App 80; case activity

Multiplicity — conviction for conspiracy and for completed crime under  § 939.72(2)

Lock was convicted of conspiracy to solicit prostitutes and conspiracy to pander between 1998 and 2003. Based on conduct in four specific months in 2002, he was also convicted of four counts of soliciting prostitutes as a party to the crime and four counts of pandering as party to the crime.

Review of unpublished court of appeals decision; case activity

Issue (composed by On Point)

Did the circuit court’s answer to a question posed by the jury during deliberations allow the jury to base its verdict on speculation and conjecture?

Because petitions for review are not available on the court’s website, the issue statement was composed based on the court of appeals’ decision and the parties briefs.

State v. John R. Edwards, 2013 WI App 51; case activity

The longer period of probation applicable to a misdemeanor act of domestic abuse under Wis. Stat. § 973.09(2)(a)1.b. may be ordered even though the charging documents did not allege the crime was an act of domestic abuse.

Edwards was charged with substantial battery, strangulation and suffocation, and disorderly conduct based on an incident with his live-in girlfriend.

State v. Viliunas, 2012AP2284-CR, District 2, 2/20/13; court of appeals decision (1-judge, ineligible for publication); case activity

State’s destruction of video from police car’s dashboard camera did not violate OWI defendant’s due process rights. The defendant, who was found in the driver’s seat of a ditched car, claimed another person had been driving—although not until his jury trial, which occurred over a year after the incident, and after Viliunas had missed two earlier trial dates.

Questions presented:

1. Whether the Michigan Supreme Court’s recognition that a state statute abolished the long-maligned diminished-capacity defense was an “unexpected and indefensible” change in a common-law doctrine of criminal law under this Court’s retroactivity jurisprudence. See Rogers v. Tennessee, 532 U.S. 451 (2001).

2. Whether the Michigan Court of Appeals’ retroactive application of the Michigan Supreme Court’s decision was “so lacking in justification that there was an error well understood and comprehended in existing law beyond any possibility for fairminded disagreement”

State v. Jacob Turner, 2013 WI App 23;  case activity

Addressing an unusual set of facts, the court of appeals holds Turner’s constitutional rights to an impartial jury and due process were not violated by the seating of a juror who had not been summoned for service and who did not disclose that to the court.

A summons for jury duty was sent to “John P.

Racine County v. Renee D., 2012AP1974, District 2, 2/20/13; court of appeals decision (1-judge, ineligible for publication); case activity

Wis. Stat. § 48.415(5) is not unconstitutionally vague and does not violate due process

As applied to Renee D., the two elements for the “child abuse” ground under § 48.415(5) are: 1) the parent has shown a pattern of physical or sexual abuse that is a substantial threat to the health of the child who is the subject of the petition;

Question presented:

Whether or under what circumstances the Fifth Amendment’s Self-Incrimination Clause protects a defendant’s refusal to answer law enforcement questioning before he has been arrested or read his Miranda rights.

Lower court opinion (Salinas v. State, 369 S.W.3d 176 (Tex. Crim. App. 2012))

Docket

Scotusblog page

This case could have a significant impact on Wisconsin law.

State v. Alexander Jerome Wiley, 2012AP71-CR, District 1, 12/11/12

court of appeals decision (3 judge; not recommended for publication); case activity

Wiley, a co-defendant in a reckless homicide case, moved the circuit court to exclude the in-court identification testimony of an eyewitness to the crime who had picked Wiley out of a photo array. He argued that the in-court identification was tainted because the photo array was unduly suggestive.