Review of a published court of appeals decision; case activity (including briefs) Issue (from petition for review): Is a defendant deprived of his constitutional right against self-incrimination and his rights guaranteed by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article I, § 8 of the Wisconsin Constitution by the admission at trial in the state’s… Read more
5. Confessions
State v. Miguel Muniz-Munoz, 2014AP702-CR, 3/1/16, District 1 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs) By the time Muniz-Munoz went to trial for first degree intentional homicide, the medical examiner who conducted the autopsy of the victim was dead. The trial court allowed another medical examiner who reviewed the case record to give his independent… Read more
Today’s New York Times notes a study finding that in 2015 a record 149 people in the United States were found to have been falsely convicted of a crime. Official misconduct played a role in 65 exonerations and false confessions were seen in 27. The National Registry of Exonerations, based at the University of Michigan… Read more
State v. Jeanette M. Janusiak, 2015AP160-CR, 1/28/16, District 4 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs) Pregnancy does not by itself make a suspect particularly vulnerable to police pressure and tactics during custodial interrogation, the court of appeals holds, so the fact that Janusiak was in an advanced state of pregnancy didn’t render her… Read more
State v. Gregory Tyson Below, 2014AP2614-2616-CR, 1/12,16, District 1 (not recommended for publication); case activity, including briefs This was a high profile case in Milwaukee. Below was convicted of 29 charges of kidnapping, strangulation and suffocation, sexual assault, battery, reckless injury and solicitation of prostitutes. He appealed and asserted 4 claims for a new trial… Read more
United States v. Antonio West, 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Case No. 14-2514, 12/30/15 The trial court erroneously excluded expert evidence that West sought to admit regarding factors that made him susceptible to making an unreliable confession to a crime. West, a felon, confessed to possessing a firearm. He moved to suppress his statement arguing… Read more
State v. Brian I. Harris, 2016 WI App 2, petition for review granted 4/6/16, affirmed 2017 WI 31; case activity (including briefs) Incriminating statements Harris made while he was in custody were admissible despite the lack of Miranda warnings because the statements were either sufficiently attenuated from the taint of police questioning or were not made in… Read more
Review of a published court of appeals decision; case activity (including briefs) Issues (composed by On Point from the PFR) Does the inevitable discovery doctrine require the State to show that information gained through police misconduct did not prompt or influence the purportedly lawful investigation? Does the inevitable discovery doctrine require the State to show that it… Read more
