On Point: B. Discovery

State v. William H. Craig, 2017AP651-CR, 4/17/18, District 3 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Criminal defendants have a broad right to pretrial discovery under §971.23(1), but that right is tempered by  §971.23(6), which authorizes the circuit court to enter protective orders for good cause. The court is not required to hold an evidentiary hearing before granting a motion for protective order. But if it denies a hearing, it must explain its rationale. The circuit court did not do that here, so the court of appeals reversed and remanded this case for further proceedings.

State v. Gary Lee Wayerski, 2015AP1083-CR, petition for review of unpublished court of appeals opinion granted 3/13/18; case activity (including briefs)

Issues (composed by On Point):

Whether trial counsel was ineffective where he did not ask the testifying defendant about the purported confession he gave to a jailhouse snitch, and defendant would have denied the conversation occurred.

Whether the state violated Brady when it did not inform defense that the snitch had pending child-sex charges during the trial.

State v. Timothy P. Gregory, 2016AP1265-CR, District 2, 3/14/18 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

In this lengthy decision, the court of appeals rejects multiple challenges Gregory makes to his convictions for child sexual assault that occurred in 1997.

State v. Lonnie S. Sorenson, 2016AP1540-CR, 12/5/17, District 3 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Sorenson appeals jury-trial convictions for operating with a PAC and possession of drug paraphernalia. He was also found guilty of operating with a detectable amount of THC in his blood, but this was dismissed by operation of statute. See Wis. Stat. § 346.63(2)(am). He raises ineffective assistance, pretrial discovery, and confrontation issues, but the court rejects them all.

State v. Jamie M. Srb, 2017AP307-CR, 11/9/17, District 4 (1-judge opinion, ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Srb objected to the admissibility of his BAC results at his OWI trial in part because the State submitted a summary of expert testimony that failed to indicate that its expert would testify about retrograde extrapolation. See §971.23(1)(e). The court of appeals agreed that the State’s summary contained no information regarding retrograde extrapolation, but held that this level of specificity was not required.

State v. Jesse Steven Poehlman, 2016AP1074, 7/5/17, District 1 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

The state charged Poehlman with various counts relating to two alleged incidents of sexual assault and battery of his wife–one in December 2014 and one in February 2015. The jury acquitted as to the earlier incident and convicted as to the latter. The court of appeals rejects his arguments that he must receive a new trial.

Charles Turner, et al., v. United States, USSC Nos. 15-1503 & 15-1504, 2017 WL 2674152 (June 22, 2017), affirming Turner v. U.S., 116 A.3d 894 (D.C. App. 2015); Scotusblog page (including links to briefs and commentary)

In granting cert in this case the Court told the parties to brief one issue: Whether the convictions of the petitioners must be set aside under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). We thought the case might be the occasion for the Court to say something important about Brady, but that didn’t happen. The Court simply says the issue before it “is legally simple but factually complex” (slip op. at 11), applies the Brady standard without alteration or elaboration, and concludes the convictions stand.

State v. George D. Taylor, 2015AP1325-CR, 4/27/17, District 1/4 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Taylor raises a host of challenges to his felony murder conviction. The court of appeals rejects all of them except one: an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, which the court orders must be assessed at a Machner hearing.

State v. Karl W. Nichols, 2016AP88-CR, 3/20/17, District IV (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Nichols was convicted, at trial, of a sexual assault of a four-year-old child; the child did not report the alleged assault to anyone until she was 10 years old. Nichols’s postconviction motion alleged that the state had failed to turn over a list, prepared by the child, of changes she wished to make to statements she made during her first forensic interview. The circuit court found the state had acted in bad faith in withholding the list, vacated Nichols’s conviction, and dismissed the charges with prejudice. The court of appeals now reverses and remands for the circuit court to consider Nichols’s sentence modification claim.

Turner v. United States, USSC No. 15-1503, and Overton v. United States, USSC No. 15-1504, cert. granted, consolidated for argument and decision, 12/14/16

Question presented (as formulated by SCOTUS)

Whether the petitioners’ convictions must be set aside under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963).