State v. George D. Taylor, 2015AP1325-CR, 4/27/17, District 1/4 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs) Taylor raises a host of challenges to his felony murder conviction. The court of appeals rejects all of them except one: an ineffective assistance of counsel claim, which the court orders must be assessed at a Machner hearing. Taylor… Read more
B. Discovery
State v. Karl W. Nichols, 2016AP88-CR, 3/20/17, District IV (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs) Nichols was convicted, at trial, of a sexual assault of a four-year-old child; the child did not report the alleged assault to anyone until she was 10 years old. Nichols’s postconviction motion alleged that the state had failed… Read more
Turner v. United States, USSC No. 15-1503, and Overton v. United States, USSC No. 15-1504, cert. granted, consolidated for argument and decision, 12/14/16 Question presented (as formulated by SCOTUS) Whether the petitioners’ convictions must be set aside under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963). Lower court opinion (for both cases): Turner, et al., v. United States… 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State v. William J. Thurber, 2015AP161-CR, 7/27/16, District 2 (not recommended for publication); case activity (including briefs) “Was Thurber’s trial a game being played or was it a trial designed to search for the truth?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. L.C., 2016AP81, 5/25/16, District 2 (1-judge opinion; ineligible for publication; case activity That sums up the court of appeals’ decision in this juvenile delinquency case. The State failed to timely provide the defense with a copy of L.C.’s recorded confession and a witness list before trial. The circuit court and court of appeals shrugged… Read more
State v. Caroline D. Prieto, 2016 WI App 15; case activity (including briefs) Nearly three years after the defense demand, and a year after the first (of two) court orders to produce a witness list, the state still hadn’t done so. The circuit court’s response? No list, no witnesses. The state appeals and… The appellate… Read more
State v. Jose O. Gonzalez-Villarreal, 2013AP1615-CR, District 1, 1/27/15 (not recommended for publication); case activity The court of appeals rejects Gonzalez-Villarreal’s challenge to his conviction for possessing child pornography based on claims that: his right to a speedy trial was violated; discovery restrictions violated his right to equal protection; other acts evidence was erroneously admitted; the… Read more
State v. Francisco Luis Canales, 2013AP1435-CR, District 1, 3/11/14; court of appeals decision (not recommended for publication); case activity Though the state violated its discovery obligation by failing to disclose multiple computer-aided dispatch (CAD) reports describing 9-1-1 calls regarding the incident, the circuit court did not erroneously exercise its discretion in denying Canales’s motion for… Read more
