On Point

State v. Mose B. Coffee, 2018AP1209, petition for review granted 10/18/19; affirmed 6/5/20; case activity (including briefs)

Issue:

Whether evidence obtained during a warrantless search of a person’s vehicle
incident to his OWI arrest must be suppressed when there was no reason to believe that evidence of the OWI arrest would be found in the area of the vehicle searched by officers.

State ex rel. Milton Eugene Warren v. Michael Meisner, 2019AP567-W, petition for review granted 10/16/19; reversed and remanded 6/10/20; case activity

Issue (composed by On Point based on the petition for review)

Whether under State v. Starks, 2013 WI 69, Warren’s § 974.06 postconviction motion alleging ineffective assistance of counsel by the lawyer appointed on direct appeal should be heard in the circuit court or the Court of Appeals.

State v. John W. Lane, 2019AP153-CR, District 4, 10/17/19 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Lane consented to a blood draw after his OWI arrest, but a week later wrote the State Hygiene Lab saying he was revoking his consent to the collection and testing of his blood. The authorities tested the blood anyway. Lane’s challenge to the test result is foreclosed by State v. Randall, 2019 WI 80, 387 Wis. 2d 744, 930 N.W.2d 223.

State v. Courtney C. Brown, 2019 WI App 34, petition for review granted 10/15/19; case activity (including links to briefs)

Issues (petition for review)

Whether police unlawfully extended a noncriminal traffic stop beyond its initial purpose?

You know what it is: 53206, a heavily African American neighborhood north of downtown Milwaukee. The New Republic just published an article about how it came to be the “most incarcerated” zip code.    Read it here. 

State v. Jamie Ellin Grimm, 2019AP789-Cr, District 2, 10/16/19 (1-judge opinion, ineligible for publication), case activity (including briefs)

When a driver approaches an oncoming car within 500 feet,  §347.12(1)(a) requires her to “dim, depress or tilt” her high beams so that “glaring rays” aren’t directed into the eyes of the approaching driver. It is undisputed that Grimm flashed her beams within 500 feet of an approaching squad car.

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. Larry W. Olson, 2019 WI App 61; case activity (including briefs)

Olson and the state resolved some felony counts with an agreement that he’d plead not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect. The court found him NGI and committed him for 19 years, placing him on conditional release immediately. A few weeks later, Olson admitted violating his release conditions by smoking methamphetamine. DHS, which supervises NGI committees, immediately took him into custody. For reasons unknown, it held him for eight days before filing a petition to revoke his supervised release. This, everyone agrees, violated Wis. Stat. § 971.17(3)(e), which says such a petition “shall” be filed within 72 hours of detention (excluding weekends and holidays). The dispute on appeal is what that violation means: the state says there’s no consequence at all; Olson says a late petition is no good and must be dismissed. In legalese, the question is whether the word “shall” is mandatory or directory.

Dane County v. T.R., 2019AP1336-1338, 10/10/19, District 4 (1-judge opinion, ineligible for publication); case activity

This is a confidential case, so we don’t know what the briefs argue or the record shows. However, it seems the circuit court failed to make the findings essential to its order terminating T.R.’s parental rights to her 3 children, and the court of appeals shored up the decision in  order to affirm.

State v. Marcus Demond Anderson, Sr., 2018AP2016-CR, District 1, 10/8/19 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

At the start of his sentencing hearing Anderson lodged a complaint against his lawyer, which the judge blithely ignored. (¶¶2-4). Do over, says the court of appeals.