State v. Travis Deon Williams, 2014AP2064-CR, 2014AP2065-CR, 2014AP2066-CR, and 2014AP2067-CR, District 1, 2/10/15 (1-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)
The prosecutor presented inaccurate information at Williams’s sentencing, but Williams hasn’t proven the circuit court relied on the information.
At Williams’s sentencing for multiple counts of domestic abuse-related conduct toward Hamilton, his live-in girlfriend, the prosecutor told the court that Williams had engaged in similar uncharged conduct toward Hamilton in 2004, 2005, 2007, and 2008. Williams objected to that claim at sentencing, and the state now concedes that information was wrong, as those four instances of conduct involved a different victim. (¶¶7, 10, 11).
Even so, Williams isn’t entitled to resentencing because he hasn’t shown by clear and convincing evidence that the sentencing court “actually relied” on the inaccurate information about the four incidents, State v. Tiepelman, 2006 WI 66, ¶14, 291 Wis. 2d 179, 717 N.W.2d 1 (the test for actual reliance is “whether the court gave ‘explicit attention’ or ‘specific consideration’ to … the misinformation”). (¶12). The record shows the circuit court didn’t rely on the information, for it noted during its sentencing remarks that there was a “break” in Williams’s conduct regarding Hamilton “between 2007 and 2010” and that even after “knock[ing] off ’04 and ’05” Williams’s record showed “an ongoing, chronic problem.” (¶11).
