On Point: 3. Required knowledge

Review of a per curiam court of appeals decision; case activity

Issues (composed by SCOW). See order granting review.

1.  Where a defendant seeks to plead guilty or no contest to a charge of operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of an intoxicant (OWI), or with a prohibited alcohol concentration (PAC), do State v. Bangert, 131 Wis.2d 246, 389 N.W.2d 12 (1986) and due process principles require that the number of prior offenses that count for sentence enhancement be determined prior to entry of the defendant’s plea?

2.  Is a court of appeals’ decision ordering remand to the circuit court with instructions to: (1) issue an amended judgment of conviction reflecting a conviction for operating with a PAC, as a seventh offense, and (2) hold a resentencing hearing, and impose a sentence consistent with the penalty ranges for a seventh offense, constitutionally impermissible under Bangert and due process principles where the defendant specifically entered a plea of guilty to PAC as a sixth offense, where the circuit court sentenced the defendant in accordance to proper penalties for PAC as a sixth offense, and where the defendant has already served the confinement portion of such sentence?

State v. Isaiah N. Triggs, 2014AP204-CR, District 1, 10/28/14 (not recommended for publication); case activity

Trial counsel wasn’t ineffective for waiving a preliminary hearing in Triggs’s homicide prosecution or for failing to move to suppress Triggs’s confession. Further, the circuit court’s plea colloquy with Triggs was not defective and the circuit court didn’t erroneously exercise its sentencing discretion.

State v. Fernando Ortiz-Mondragon, 2014 WI App 114, petition for review granted 12/18/14, affirmed, 2015 WI 73; case activity

Ortiz-Mondragon’s trial counsel wasn’t ineffective under Padilla v. Kentucky, 559 U.S. 356 (2010), for failing to advise Ortiz-Mondragon that his convictions were “crimes involving moral turpitude” (CIMT) and would result in mandatory deportation and a permanent bar on reentry. Unlike the conviction in Padilla, CIMT is a “broad classification of crimes” that escapes precise definition, and there’s no clear authority indicating any of the crimes to which Ortiz-Mondragon pled were crimes of moral turpitude. Thus, the deportation consequences of Ortiz-Mondragon’s plea was unclear and uncertain, and his attorney wasn’t deficient in failing to unequivocally inform him that his plea would result in deportation and inadmissibility.

Question presented:

To trigger deportability under 8 U.S.C. § 1227(a)(2)(B)(i), must the government prove the connection between a drug paraphernalia conviction and a substance listed in section 802 of the Controlled Substances Act?

State v. Ivan Mendez, 2014 WI App 57; case activity

When Mendez pleaded guilty to maintaining a drug trafficking place his attorney failed to inform him that a conviction for charge would subject him to automatic deportation from the United States with no applicable exception and no possibility of discretionary waiver. Padilla v. Kentucky,

State v. Matthew Allen Lilek, Appeal No. 2012AP1855, District 1; 11/13/13, (not recommended for publication), case activity

The dispositive issue in this appeal was whether the defendant, who is legally blind and has suffered cognitive disabilities his entire life, knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily entered a no-contest plea to second degree sexual assault, with use of force, and to aggravated battery.  During the plea colloquy, defense counsel assured the court that experts had examined his client and,

State v. Ali Mursal, 2013 WI App 125; case activity

Before accepting a defendant’s guilty or no contest plea the court is required to advise the defendant there may be immigration consequences. Wis. Stat. § 971.08(1)(c). While that statute prescribes a text for the required warning—complete with quotation marks—the court of appeals holds in this case that a judge’s failure to repeat that language verbatim is not by itself grounds for plea withdrawal.

State v. Juan M. Rodriguez-Faustino, 2012AP2777, District 1, May 29, 2013; court of appeals decision (1-judge; ineligible for publication); case activity

Rodriguez-Faustino pled to a misdemeanor drug offense and, in January 2007, was placed on probation for 12 months. (¶¶4-5). In September 2012 he filed a motion to withdraw his plea, asserting his attorney was ineffective under Padilla v. Kentucky, 130 S.Ct. 1473, 1475‑1476 (2010),

State v. Nely B. Robles, 2013 WI App 76; case activity.

Issue:  When accepting a guilty plea is the circuit court required to specify whether the defendant is pleading to a felony or a misdemeanor?

Robles sought to withdraw her guilty plea on the grounds that the circuit court’s failure to specify the designation of the charged crime violated Wis. Stats.  § 971.08(1)(a)’s requirement that she be informed of the “nature of the charge.”  

State v. Stephen Robert Felix Schurk, 2012AP1501-CR, District 1, 3/5/13; court of appeals decision (1 judge; ineligible for publication); case activity

Schurk was not entitled to plea withdrawal even though the judge did not specifically inform Schurk that he was not bound by the parties’ plea agreement because the information was conveyed to Schurk in other ways:

¶11      …. [The court’s] colloquy advised Schurk that with regard to certain aspects of the sentencing,