State v. Adams, 2023AP218-CR, petition for review of a published decision of the court of appeals, granted 2/12/25; case activity
SCOW grants Adams’s petition for review in part and signifies its interest in bringing clarity to an important procedural aspect of reverse waiver hearings.
SCOW grants review with respect to only one of the issues in Adams’s PFR:
1. Was Jayden entitled to discovery before his preliminary hearing in order to
protect his right to challenge the criminal court’s original jurisdiction?
In other w0rds, SCOW will not be reviewing the circuit court’s discretionary decision denying Adams’s motion for reverse waiver. Instead, SCOW will be addressing an issue that is of great importance in this admittedly niche practice area.
As we explained in our post, the issue has its seeds in SCOW’s 2005 decision in State v. Kleser, which examined the unique nature of the probable cause phase of a reverse waiver procedure. This “preliminary hearing” is similar, but also distinct in important ways, from, the “regular” preliminary hearing routinely conducted in all other criminal cases. Because Kleser instructs that juveniles charged in adult court are to have “some latitude” in attacking the underlying allegations, COA has therefore read a limited right of pre-preliminary hearing discovery into Wisconsin’s reverse waiver procedure.
While technically a defense win of sorts, it turns out that neither party was happy with the rule set forth by COA. The State thinks it goes too far; Adams’s PFR argues that the rule does not go far enough. We’ll be interested to see how SCOW interprets the relevant authorities and what rule of criminal procedure wins out in the end.
