State v. Phyllis M. Schwersenska, 2018AP1619-CR, District 4, 4/30/20 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs) Schwersenska was convicted of embezzling money from a joint bank account she held with her daughter, H.R. The court of appeals holds trial counsel wasn’t ineffective for failing to raise the defense that, as joint owner of the… Read more
1. Offenses
Kansas v. Garcia, USSC No. 17-384, 2020 WL 1016170, 3/3/20, reversing and remanding State v. Garcia, 401 P.3d 588 (Kan. 2017); Scotusblog page (including links to briefs and commentary) In a five-to-four vote, the Supreme Court has upheld Kansas’s prosecution of noncitizens who used stolen social security numbers to gain employment. The Kansas Supreme Court… Read more
State v. Sean N. Jones, 2018AP948-CR, District 3, 8/20/19 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs) Jones makes various challenges to his conviction and sentence for being to party to the crime of armed robbery. The court of appeals rejects all of his claims except the last one, involving sentence credit. Jones first challenges… 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
State v. Autumn Marie Love Lopez & Amy J. Rodriguez, 2017AP913-CR & 2017AP914-CR, petition for review granted 4/9/19; case activity (including briefs) Issue: Does either Wis. Stat. § 971.36 or inherent prosecutorial charging discretion allow a prosecutor to charge a single felony count of retail theft for multiple separate acts of theft, each involving less than… Read more
State v. Autumn Marie Love Lopez & Amy J. Rodriguez, 2019 WI App 2, petition for review granted 4/9/19, affirmed by a divided court, 2019 WI 101; Lopez case activity; Rodriquez case activity). Lopez and Rodriguez were each charged with a single count being party to the crime of felony retail theft of more than $500 but less than $5,000 based… Read more
United States v. Dennis Franklin & Shane Salm, 2018AP1346-CQ, certification granted 8/15/18; case activity The Seventh Circuit certified the following question of law to the Wisconsin Supreme Court: Whether the different location subsections of the Wisconsin burglary statute, Wis. Stat. § 943.10(1m)(a)–(f), identify alternative elements of burglary, one of which a jury must unanimously find beyond… Read more
State v. Christopher A. Mason, 2018 WI App 57; case activity (including briefs) Applying its newly minted decision in State v. Stewart, 2018 WI App 41, the court of appeals holds that the “representing” element of identity theft under § 943.201 can be proven with the same evidence that proves the defendant “used” the identifying… Read more
