On Point: 36. Sentencing

State v. Amanuel A. Ayele, 2019AP432, 11/7/19, District 4 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Ayele pleaded to a battery after an attack on his father, with whom he lived. The state had charged the crime as an incident of domestic abuse carrying a surcharge under Wis. Stat. § 973.o55 but moved, as part of the plea deal, to remove this provision. The court wouldn’t go along though, and Ayele pleaded anyway. What the court did do is waive the actual imposition of the surcharge under § 973.055(4). But the judgment of conviction still notes “Domestic Abuse Assessments” in the description of the charge, and Ayele wants the notation struck.

State v. Michael A. Nieman, 2017AP1906-CR, 11/7/29, District 4, (1-judge opinion, ineligible for publication); case activity (including State’s brief)

Nieman, pro se, appealed an order for over $13,000 in restitution entered after he pled to felony theft by false representation. The court should not have awarded any restitution, he argued. Or, if restitution was permitted, then it should be zero due a civil judgment against him arising from the same conduct.

State v. Jeffery Scott Wiganowsky, 2019AP884-CR, District 4, 10/24/19 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Wiganowsky was charged for OWI in Wyoming in 2015. He negotiated a deferred prosecution agreement, which he successfully completed, so the charge was dismissed. But his driving privileges were administratively suspended due to his blood-alcohol content. (¶9). That counts as a prior OWI “conviction” under §§ 340.01(9r) and 343.307(1)(d).

Charging as Sentencing, a recent article by Professor Donald Dripps at the University of San Diego Law School, contends that they are. Consider the possibilities.

State v. Vaylan G. Morris, 2018AP1694-CR, Distrct 1, 10/1/19 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

O.M., an infant, died while c0-sleeping with Morris and her mom. Morris admitted that he may have rolled over onto her and pled guilty to 2nd degree recklessly endangering safety, party to a crime, At sentencing, the State said that O.M.’s cause of death could have been the synthetic marijuana that Morris had been smoking, even though the medical examiner attested that it  wasn’t.

State v. Marvin Frank Robinson, 2019AP105-106-CR; 9/24/19; District 1 (1-judge opinion, ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Robinson pled to misdemeanor battery with domestic abuse assessements and to knowingly violating a temporary restraining order in one case. He also pled to misdemeanor bail jumping (violation of the TRO) and other crimes in a second case.  On appeal, he challenged trial court’s application of the domestic abuse modifier and its imposition of the domestic abuse surcharge, but the court of appeals affirmed.

State v. Larry C. Lokken, 2017AP2087-CR, 9/17/19, District 3 (unpublished), case activity (including briefs)

Lokken, a long-time Eau Claire County Treasurer, pled “no contest” to 3 counts of misconduct in office and 5 counts of theft in a business setting for stealing $625,758.22 from taxpayers.  The circuit court ordered $681,846.92 in restitution  and imposed an unusual condition of probation on one of the counts: if Lokken failed to pay restitution in 4 1/2 years, the 10-year probation period  on Count 2 would be revoked.

State v. Amy Joan Zahurones, 2019 WI App 57; case activity (including briefs)

Zahurones was charged with several drug-related counts along with resisting an officer and physical abuse of a child. All the counts arose out of a single encounter with the police. She ultimately pleaded to four counts. On three of those counts she got probation, but on Count 2–the felony child-abuse count–she entered a deferred-judgment agreement with the state. The court put her on a signature bond with respect to that last count, since she wouldn’t otherwise be supervised. Over the next couple of years, Zahurones spent a total of about 9 months in jail on probation holds. Ultimately both the probation and the deferred-judgment agreement were revoked. So, does she get credit for those probation holds against her sentence on Count 2, even though she was technically on a signature bond for that count when she was in jail?

State v. Sean N. Jones, 2018AP948-CR, District 3, 8/20/19 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Jones makes various challenges to his conviction and sentence for being to party to the crime of armed robbery. The court of appeals rejects all of his claims except the last one, involving sentence credit.

State v. Richard H. Harrison Jr., 2017AP2440 & 2441-CR, cross-petitions for review granted 8/14/19; case activity

We posted about the unpublished court of appeals decision; the basic scenario is that Mr. Harrison served his initial confinement on a couple of concurrent sentences, then began serving the initial confinement portion of some sentences that had been imposed consecutive to that first set of sentences. But, about three years into those later sentences, they were vacated. So what happens to the three years Harrison was in prison on sentences that no longer exist? Do they count toward satisfying the extended supervision of his still-extant, earlier-imposed sentences?