On Point

State v. Dennis C. Strong, Jr., 2020AP1197-CR, District 3, 3/8/22 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

In a decision that provides a nice primer about using specific instances of a witness’s to attack the witness’s character for truthfulness § 906.08(2), the court of appeals holds the circuit court erroneously barred Strong from cross examining the complaining witness about a prior false statement she’d made to the police four months earlier in a different case.

Orin Kerr at Volokh Conspiracy has posted an essay on a recent federal district court decision regarding the legality of so-called “geofence” warrants, which involve law enforcement getting access to Google’s cell phone location data and using the data to advance a criminal investigation. Google apparently imposes its own sort of “warrant” requirement, and the basic […]

State v. Michael Nelson, 2021AP1133-CR, 3/9/22, District 2 (1-judge opinion, ineligible for publication); case activity

Nelson, who values his right to bear arms, pled guilty to several crimes, including disorderly conduct and domestic violence.  As a condition of his probation, he was barred from possessing firearms. Postconviction, he claimed that his trial lawyer incorrectly advised him that “pleading to disorderly conduct could result in a temporary rather than permanent loss of his gun rights” and that the trial court erred in denying him a hearing on his ineffective assistance of counsel claim.

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. Jennifer A. Jenkins, 2020AP1243-CR, 3/1/22, District 3 (1-judge opinion, ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

Jenkins, convicted of OWI 2nd, raised some interesting and unusual challenges to the trial court’s order denying her motion to suppress.  (1) The arresting officer’s testimony was incredible as a matter of law. (2) He unlawfully stopped her car outside of his jurisdiction. And (3) her blood draw was painful, inordinately long, and therefore unreasonable. The court of appeals rejected all of them.

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.

State v. Ronald Henry Griffin, 2020AP1750-CR, 2/22/22, District 1; case activity (including briefs)

Griffin and his friend, Taylor, were charged with sexually assaulting T.H. Taylor pled and agreed to testify against Griffin, who went to trial and was found guilty. He filed a pro se appeal arguing that (1) the State failed to turn over Brady evidence (2) he received ineffective assistance of counsel, and (3) the circuit court erroneously admitted two letters, which were not authenticated. The court of appeals affirmed the conviction but Judge Dugan filed a concurrence on the third issue.

State v. N.H., 2021AP2035-2039, 2/22/22, District 1 (1-judge opinion, ineligible for publication); case activity

A trial court terminated N.H.’s parental rights to her 5 children. On appeal she argued that there was insufficient evidence to support findings that she was an unfit parent and that terminating her rights was in the best interest of her children. The court of appeals affirmed.

This week’s edition of SCOWstats focuses on judicial activism as seen in the justices’ votes on petitions for original actions. Typically it is conservative justices who call liberal justices “judicial activists.” SCOWstats’s analysis of original action petitions filed in 2020-2021 suggests that it is conservative justices who want to dispense with procedure in order to […]

And for something a little different, here’s a story about a naked lawyer in Florida.