On Point: Important Posts

City of Rhinelander v. Zachary Tyler LaFave-LaCrosse, 2020AP1466-1467, 4/5/22, District 3 (1-judge appeal, ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

This case needs a motion for reconsideration. LaFave-LaCrosse, an unemployed student, appealed convictions for OWI 1st and refusal to take a breath test and moved the circuit court for waiver of transcript fees due to his indigency. The circuit court denied his motion, so he appealed that decision. The court of appeals held that the circuit court made an error of law. But then the court of appeals applied the wrong legal standard to affirm.

On March 30, 2022, the court of appeals ordered publication of the following criminal law related decisions:

State v. Daimon Von Jackson, Jr., 2019AP2383, petition for review of granted 3/21/22; dismissed as improvidently granted 5/8/23;  case activity (including briefs)

Issues (from Von Jackson’s PFR):

1.    Whether a defendant is prejudiced when trial counsel does not communicate with him before his homicide trial.

2.    Whether a defendant should be allowed to obtain new counsel when his current counsel is deficient.

State v. Eric D. Bourgeois, 2022 WI App 18; case activity (including briefs)

Police went looking for Bourgeois at a hotel because he might have been in possession of stolen handgun, he had PTSD, and he had a drug problem. At 2:00 a.m., despite a “do not disturb” sign, 3 officers tried to enter his room unannounced first using a key card and then a master key. Due to the chain lock, they could only peek through but they saw that Bourgeois alone and unarmed  He declined to let them in and turned away. Claiming exigent circumstances, police busted through the hotel door.

Victor Ortiz, Jr. v. Kevin A. Carr, 2022 WI App 16; case activity (including briefs)

Attorneys Jason Luczak and Jorge Fragoso of Gimbel, Reilly, Geurin & Brown generously took this case pro bono. And now Jorge offers this guest post on their defense win:

Prison inmate (and hero to institutionalized persons) Victor Ortiz filed a petition for writ of certiorari seeking to limit the percentage of his income diverted for the payment of restitution. He won. The court of appeals ordered the Department of Corrections to limit its withholdings to 25% of Ortiz’s wages, half of what the Department sought.

Nancy Kindschy v. Brian Aish, 2022 WI App 17; case activity (including briefs), reversed by Kindschy v. Ash, 2024 WI 27.

Kindschy, a nurse practitioner at a Planned Parenthood clinic, obtained a harassment injunction against Aish, an anti-abortion protestor.  On appeal, Aish argued that his conduct did not qualify as “harassment” as defined by §813.125. He also claimed that his conduct had a “legitimate purpose”–he has a right to proselytize, and he was only trying to force Kindschy to leave her employment and shut down Planned Parenthood.

State v. Shane Allan Stroik, 2022 WI App 11; case activity (including briefs)

A jury convicted Stroik of the sexual assault of a then-five-year old girl, “Amy,” the daughter of his girlfriend. Postconviction, Stroik brought a slew of claims for a new trial; the circuit court rejected them all. The court of appeals now holds that trial counsel performed deficiently in not obtaining a report from child protective services detailing an accusation Amy had made about her cousin a few months before she accused Stroik–an accusation about an assault quite similar in its details to the one she would later say Stroik committed. The court also finds a reasonable probability that this evidence would have resulted in an acquittal, and thus grants Stroik a new trial.

On review of a court of appeals certification; affirmed 5/23/23; case activity (including briefs);

Issue:

Whether Wis. Stat. § 301.45(5)(b)1, which mandates lifetime sex-offender registration where a person has been convicted of a sex offense “on 2 or more separate occasions,” applies when a person’s only eligible convictions are entered on multiple guilty pleas in the same case.

State v. Christopher W. Yakich, 2022 WI 8, 2/16/22, affirming an unpublished court of appeals decision; case activity (including briefs)

When a defendant is found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect (NGI) for more than one offense, the commitments for the offenses may be ordered to run consecutively.

State v. Jere J. Meddaugh, 2022 WI App 12; case activity (including briefs)

Wearing black clothing and riding a bicycle across publicly accessible school grounds in the middle of the night while a Safer at Home order is in effect does not constitute reasonable suspicion that a crime is being committed. So says the court of appeals in a decision that is recommended for publication.