On Point: 35. Search & Seizure

State v. Lauren Ann Erstad, 2015AP2675-CR, 7/28/16, District 4 (1-judge opinion, ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Convicted of an OWI 2nd, Erstad challenged the search warrant relied upon to collect and test her blood because: (1) the affidavit supporting the warrant contained false information; and (2) the warrant authorized the “collection” of her blood but not the “testing” of it. The court of appeals rejected both arguments.

State v. Alejandro Herrera Ayala, 2015AP865-CR, District 3, 7/26/16 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

The court of appeals affirms the circuit court’s findings that the manner in which standardized field sobriety tests were administered to Herrera Ayala was “fatally flawed” because of “significant communication issues” between the officer and Herrera Ayala (a Spanish speaker with apparently limited English) and that those flaws made the SFSTs “unreliable” for purposes of determining probable cause to arrest. 

State v. Michael L. Joy, 2015AP960-CR, District 3, 7/26/16 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

An officer’s multiple good-faith factual mistakes didn’t invalidate his stop of a truck to investigate a possible registration violation.

State v. Mark G. McCaskill, 2015AP1487-CR, District 4, 7/21/16 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

McCaskill’s challenges to his arrest and conviction for operating with a prohibited alcohol content don’t persuade the court of appeals.

State v. Patrick H. Dalton, 2016AP6-CR,7/20/16, Distrct 2 (1-judge opinion; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

The court of appeals here holds that Dalton is entitled to an evidentiary hearing on his claim that trial counsel was ineffective for failing move to suppress the test results from a warrantless blood draw. The record contains no evidence that exigent circumstances existed a la Missouri v. McNeely, and the officer who ordered the draw gave no indication that he ever considered seeking a warrant.

According to the dissent in State v. Matalonis, Wisconsin’s expansion of the community caretaker doctrine has pretty much swallowed the Fourth Amendment.  See our prior post here.  If you’re interested in this issue, take a look at the cert petition that Matalonis filed on June 30th.  We’ll keep you posted on how it fares.

State v. Navdeep S. Brar, 2015AP1261-CR, District 4, 7/7/16 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication),petition for review granted 12/19/2016, affirmed, 2017 WI 73 ; case activity (including briefs)

The record supports the circuit court’s conclusion that Brar consented to a blood test after his arrest for OWI and that his consent was voluntary.

State v. Cynthia J. Popp, 2016AP431-CR, District 4, 7/7/16 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

There was reasonable suspicion to continue detaining Popp for field sobriety testing even though the officer didn’t smell alcohol on her and told dispatch and a back-up officer he wasn’t sure what caused the poor driving he’d observed.

State v. Lewis O. Floyd, Jr., 2016 WI App 64, petition for review granted 1/9/2017, affirmed, 2017 WI 78; case activity (including briefs)

Police found drugs on Floyd after they searched him during a traffic stop. Floyd claims the traffic stop was extended beyond what was necessary to issue the citations he was given and that he didn’t consent to the search. The court of appeals turns back both challenges.

State v. Mastella L. Jackson, 2016 WI 56, 7/1/16, affirming a published decision of the court of appeals, 2015 WI App 49, 363 Wis. 2d 553, 866 N.W.2d 768; case activity (including briefs)

Despite the “flagrant” and “reprehensible” violations of Jackson’s Fifth Amendment rights by police, the supreme court holds that physical evidence seized based in part on information obtained from those violations should not be suppressed because the evidence would have been inevitably discovered. In the course of this ruling, the court alters Wisconsin’s long-established inevitable discovery standard and refuses to rule out using the doctrine in cases where the police intentionally violate a suspect’s rights.