Attorney Michael Cicchini and Professor Lawrence White previously documented here that jurors who were told to “search for the truth” were much more likely to convict a defendant even if they had reasonable doubt about his guilt than those who were properly instructed on reasonable doubt. In other words, truth-related language lowers the State’s burden of… Read more
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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… Read more
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… Read more
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… Read more
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… Read more
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… Read more
State v. William J. Thurber, 2015AP161-CR, 7/27/16, District 2 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs) “Was Thurber’s trial a game being played or was it a trial designed to search for the truth?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… Read more
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… Read more
