Waukesha County v. S.L.L., 2019WI66, affirming an unpublished court of appeals opinion, 2017AP1468; 6/12/19; case activity This 4-3 decision is alarming. Waukesha County petitioned to recommit S.L.L., a homeless person, but failed to serve her with notice of the hearing because it had no idea where she was. Since she was not served, she didn’t… Read more
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McKinney v. Arizona, USSC No. 18-1109, certiorari granted 6/10/19; affirmed 2/25/20 Questions presented: 1. Whether the Arizona Supreme Court was required to apply current law when weighing mitigating and aggravating evidence to determine whether a death sentence is warranted 2. Whether the correction of error under Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104 (1982), requires resentencing… Read more
State v. Peter J. Hanson, 2019 WI 63, 6/5/19, affirming an unpublished decision of the court of appeals; case activity (including briefs) Hanson was called to testify at a John Doe proceeding looking into an unsolved homicide. He was eventually charged with the crime, and at his trial the jury heard a portion of Hanson’s John… Read more
United States v. Dennis Franklin and Shane Sahm, 2019 WI 64, 6/6/19, answering a question certified by the Seventh Circuit; case activity (including briefs) For state practitioners, the most interesting thing about Franklin is that it happened at all. Certified questions to the Wisconsin Supreme Court are rare, and a certified question presented in a federal… Read more
Juneau County D.H.S. v. S.G.M., 2019AP553-556, 6/6/19, District 4 (1-judge opinion; ineligible for publication); case activity This appeal presents two issues of TPR law: (1) Whether a county must file an affidavit in support of its summary judgment motion; and (2) Whether Juneau County satisfied the requirement of §48.415(4)(a), which governs the “continuing denial of visitation.”… Read more
Bill Lueders v. Scott Krug, 2019 WI App 36; case activity (including briefs) Here’s a non-criminal case that may nevertheless prove useful to your criminal practice, if you seek information via the open-records law. Lueders (a reporter) sent an open records request to Krug (a state legislator)’s office, asking for emails referring to a particular… Read more
State v. Courtney C. Brown, 2019 WI App 34, petition for review granted, 10/15/19, affirmed, 2020 WI 63; case activity (including links to briefs) This is a published, split decision with a vigorous, showstopping “concurrence” by Reilly. Neubauer and Hagedorn hold that after writing Brown a ticket for a seatbelt violation, an officer’s request that he exit… Read more
Apropos today’s decision in State v. Courtney Brown, The Boston Review has just published an excerpt from a new book by a legal historian who argues that the mass adoption of the automobile revolutionized policing in the United States: The need to discipline drivers and to do so without giving offense necessitated changes to the… Read more
