On Point: D. Venue

State v. Brantner, 2020 WI 21, 2/25/20, affirming in part and reversing in part a summary order, 2018AP53; case activity (including briefs)

Brantner was arrested (for reasons unrelated to this case) in Kenosha County by Fond du Lac County detectives. They took him to jail in Fond du Lac, where a booking search revealed several different types of pills concealed in his boot. He was tried, convicted and sentenced in Fond du Lac on five counts of drug possession and five associated bail-jumping counts. The supreme court now rejects his argument that he didn’t “possess” any of the drugs in Fond du Lac County–that the arrest in Kenosha terminated his possession because he lacked control over the pills. But it agrees with him that his conviction on two of the counts (with their associated bail-jumping counts) is a double-jeopardy violation; the bare fact that he had pills with two different oxycodone dosages (5 and 20 milligram) will not support two different charges of possessing that drug.

State v. Brantner, 2018AP53, petition for review of a summary order granted 5/14/19; affirmed in part and reversed in part 2/25/20; case activity (including briefs)

Issues:

1. Do the United States and Wisconsin Constitutional protections against double jeopardy bar the State from punishing a criminal defendant twice for violations of Wis. Stat. § 961.41(3g)(am) for possessing pills containing different doses of the same substance at the same time?

2. When an individual is arrested in one county with controlled substances on his person and transported in police custody to a different county where the substances are removed from the individual’s person during the booking process, does a trial for possession of the controlled substances in the destination county violate the individual’s rights under Article I, Section VII of the Wisconsin Constitution and Wis. Stat. § 971.19?

State v. Jeffrey L. Elverman, 2015 WI App 91; case activity (including state’s brief)

The court rejects all challenges to a conviction of theft of more than $10,000. The issues mostly spring from the state’s use of Wis. Stat. § 971.36(4), which permits, under certain circumstances, the aggregation of multiple thefts into a single count.

State v. Scott R. Jensen, 2010 WI 38, reversing 2009 WI App 26, prior history omitted; for Jensen: Robert H. Friebert; BiC; Resp.; Reply

¶1   … The issue presented is whether Waukesha County Circuit Court is the proper venue for Jensen’s trial because it is the “circuit court for the county where the defendant resides”