On Point: 35. Search & Seizure

State v. Gary A. Johnson, 2007 WI 32, affirming 2006 WI App 15
For Johnson: Eileen A. Hirsch, SPD, Madison Appellate

Issue/Holding:

¶47      We reject the State’s assertion that Johnson’s collapse to the ground during the frisk because of leg pain (whether feigned or actual) is in any way relevant to the reasonableness of the protective search. As we have explained,

State v. Christopher D. Sloan, 2007 WI App 146
For Sloan: Thomas E. Hayes

Issue/Holding: Immaterial differences of memory don’t establish the “deliberate falsity or reckless disregard” for truth required to trigger a Franks hearing, ¶¶17-21; nor is such a hearing mandated in the absence of specific request, ¶22.

State v. Christopher D. Sloan, 2007 WI App 146

Issue/Holding:

¶26 The trial court here did not find a nexus in the affidavit between the items sought and the house to be searched. Nonetheless, the trial court concluded, in deference to the judge who signed the warrant, that “[t]here’s the good faith exception here. If I were confronted with this affidavit, I think I would have issued the warrant.”

¶27 … “Good faith” is not a doctrine that absolves the neutral and detached judge or magistrate from a careful,

State v. Thomas William Brady, 2007 WI App 33, PFR filed 2/13/07
For Brady: Suzanne L. Hagopian, SPD, Madison Appellate

Issue/Holding: Where the target of a search was not at home when the police forcibly entered pursuant to a search warrant, their unannounced entry did not, although not authorized by the warrant, violate the fourth amendment.

¶13   The first consideration is the safety of the police and others.

State v. Dennis M. Gralinski, 2007 WI App 233
For Gralinski: Martin Kohler; Craig Powell, PFR filed 10/5/07

Issue: Whether use of the defendant’s credit card number to purchase online membership to a child pornography site established probable cause for a search warrant of the defendant’s home.

Holding:

 ¶12     Gralinski argues that the special agent’s affidavit did not demonstrate probable cause for searching his home.

State v. Christopher D. Sloan, 2007 WI App 146
For Sloan: Thomas E. Hayes

Issue/Holding: There was an insufficiently established “nexus” between the contraband found in a package and its return address to support a search warrant for that address:

¶31 What Hennen does not describe in his affidavit is critical to our analysis. He never tells the reader that he believes Sloan is,

State v. Dennis M. Gralinski, 2007 WI App 233
For Gralinski: Martin Kohler; Craig Powell, PFR filed 10/5/07

Issue/Holding:

¶26      Gralinski next contends that the warrant was invalid because it was based on stale information such that no inference could be drawn that the items sought in the warrant would be located in his home two and one-half years after the membership to the Regpay website was purchased.

State v. Jeffrey Allen House, 2007 WI 78, affirming unpublished opinion
For House: Michael J. Steinle

Issue/Holding1:¶

¶12      House contends that because money laundering, racketeering, and continuing criminal enterprise are not specifically enumerated crimes for which wiretaps are authorized under the Wisconsin wiretap statutes, the order authorizing the wiretap in this case was unlawful. We begin our analysis by examining the words of Wisconsin’s wiretap statute,

State v. Lamont D. Powell, 2007 WI App 127
For Powell: Nicholas C. Zales

Issue/Holding:

¶3        The sixty-day limit in Wis. Stat. § 961.555(2)(b) is mandatory and a forfeiture petition must be dismissed unless the requisite hearing is held within the sixty-day period because a person may not be deprived of his or her property “for an indefinite time” without a prompt judicial assessment of whether forfeiture is justified. 

State v. Philip R. Bons, 2007 WI App 124, PFR filed 4/24/07
For Bons: Vladimir M. Gorokhovsky

Issue: Whether a concededly proper traffic stop (for speeding) was extended without sufficient cause when the officer, after issuing the ticket and returning the license, asked to search the car.

Holding:

¶15  We conclude that Ramstack could have formed a reasonable suspicion that Bons was engaged in illegal activity,