On Point

State v. Thomas M. Ort, 2015AP1571-72-CR, 8/2/16; District 3 (1-judge opinion; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Ort did not challenge the circuit court’s findings that Officer Vosters observed a silver truck speeding and that speeding would be a reasonable basis to stop the truck. Ort’s objection was that after observing the speeding, Vosters lost sight of the truck briefly and then later simply stopped “the first silver truck he saw.”  The court of appeals disagreed:

You don’t need to click here to learn that the standards police apply when deciding to stop and search black and Hispanic drivers is considerably lower than the standards they apply to white and Asian driver. But you should click there if you want to read more about a new statistical method that several Stanford professors […]

And by “truly unanimous” we mean that no justice bothered to write a separate opinion? The answer, believe it or not, is one: State v. Tourville. In today’s post, SCOWstats digs deep into the 2015-2016 term and highlights more records that SCOW smashed this year. Click here for the details.

Pretrial detention can cause innocent defendants to plead guilty in order to get out of jail. This paper by three University of Pennsylvania Law School professors finds that the practice also increases the likelihood that detainees will commit future crimes, arguably violates a long list of constitutional rights, and costs taxpayers  lots of money. Looking […]

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State v. William J. Thurber, 2015AP161-CR, 7/27/16, District 2 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

“Was Thurber’s trial a game being played or was it a trial designed to search for the truth? Thurber is certainly no angel as evidenced by his current long-term incarceration for crimes apart from this case. I believe the justice system best defines itself by scrupulously adhering to high standards when the worst of the worst comes before it. We travel a slippery slope when we excuse mistakes by the judiciary, the State, and defense counsel because we ‘know’ the defendant is a criminal.” Slip op. ¶91. (Reilly, J. dissenting).

State v. Jason R. Cooper, 2016 WI App 63; case activity (including briefs)

While a conviction for a motor vehicle offense can’t be used to establish a defendant’s repeater status under § 939.62, time a defendant spent in custody serving a sentence for a motor vehicle is still excluded when computing whether any prior convictions for non-motor vehicle offenses occurred within five years of the crime for which the defendant is being sentenced.

State v. Patricia A. Enriquez, 2015AP1850-CR, District 2, 7/27/16 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs)

After Enriquez made a statement at her sentencing for delivering nonnarcotic controlled substances, the sentencing judge presented the parties with information he had uncovered based on his own internet searches. He claimed the information showed that Enriquez’s misrepresented facts about her nursing license status in Texas and Illinois. Finding that Enriquez’s character for honesty was “miserable” based in part on this ex parte research, the judge sentenced her to consecutive terms of sixty-six months’ imprisonment, far beyond what the state had recommended. But the information the judge dredged up was inaccurate, and because the court relied on that misinformation in sentencing her, Enriquez is entitled to be resentenced.

Kenosha County v. Robert P. Adams, 2015AP2184, District 2, 7/27/16 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Based on evidence adduced at trial, the roadways at Camp Sol R. Crown were “premises held out to the public for use of their motor vehicles” under § 346.61 and the cases interpreting that statute, in particular State v. Tecza, 2008 WI App 79, 312 Wis. 2d 395, 751 N.W.2d 896 (roadways of private, gated community were held out for public use). Thus, Adams’s driving while intoxicated on those roadways was punishable under § 346.63.

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.