On Point

McKinney v. Arizona, USSC No. 18-1109, certiorari granted 6/10/19; affirmed 2/25/20

Questions presented:

1. Whether the Arizona Supreme Court was required to apply current law when weighing mitigating and aggravating evidence to determine whether a death sentence is warranted

2. Whether the correction of error under Eddings v. Oklahoma, 455 U.S. 104 (1982), requires resentencing.

[continue reading…]

State v. Peter J. Hanson, 2019 WI 63, 6/5/19, affirming an unpublished decision of the court of appeals; case activity (including briefs)

Hanson was called to testify at a John Doe proceeding looking into an unsolved homicide. He was eventually charged with the crime, and at his trial the jury heard  a portion of Hanson’s John Doe testimony. The supreme court held the admission of this evidence didn’t violate Hanson’s right to confrontation. The court also holds that Hanson’s John Doe testimony was admissible despite the lack of Miranda warnings because that warning isn’t required at a John Doe proceeding. [continue reading…]

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 criminal case regarding a matter of state criminal law is unheard of. [continue reading…]

Juneau County D.H.S. v. S.G.M., 2019AP553-556, 6/6/19, District 4 (1-judge opinion; ineligible for publication); case activity

This appeal presents two issues of TPR law: (1) Whether a county must file an affidavit in support of its summary judgment motion; and (2) Whether Juneau County satisfied the requirement of §48.415(4)(a), which governs the “continuing denial of visitation.” [continue reading…]

Bill Lueders v. Scott Krug, 2019 WI App 36; case activity (including briefs)

Here’s a non-criminal case that may nevertheless prove useful to your criminal practice, if you seek information via the open-records law. Lueders (a reporter) sent an open records request to Krug (a state legislator)’s office, asking for emails referring to a particular set of subjects. Krug’s office responded by supplying paper printouts of the requested emails; Lueders replied that he specifically wanted an electronic version of the emails, which Krug’s office refused to give him. The court of appeals now upholds the circuit court’s ruling that Lueders was entitled to the electronic data. [continue reading…]

State v. Courtney C. Brown, 2019 WI App 34, petition for review granted, 10/15/19, affirmed, 2020 WI 63; case activity (including links to briefs)

This is a published, split decision with a vigorous, showstopping “concurrence” by Reilly. Neubauer and Hagedorn hold that after writing Brown a ticket for a seatbelt violation, an officer’s request that he exit his car and consent to a search (where he was looking for drugs and weapons) was part of the traffic stop’s original mission.  Reilly “concurs” only because he can’t defy SCOW’s recent opinions in State v. Floyd and State v. Wright, which he regards as intellectually dishonest and akin to the Dred Scott decision. [continue reading…]

Apropos today’s decision in State v. Courtney Brown, The Boston Review has just published an excerpt from a new book by a legal historian who argues that the mass adoption of the automobile revolutionized policing in the United States: [continue reading…]