by admin
on September 7, 2015
State v. Jacob A. Martinez, 2015AP272, District 2, 8/5/15 (one-judge decision; ineligible of publication); case activity (including briefs)
Though there were multiple tests of the blood drawn from Martinez after his arrest for OWI—one for ethanol, two for THC (the second necessitated by the invalidity of the results of the first test)—the record and testimony are sufficiently complete “to render it improbable that the original item has been exchanged, contaminated, or tampered with,” State v. McCoy, 2007 WI App 15, ¶9, 298 Wis. 2d 523, 728 N.W.2d 54 (2006); thus, a sufficient chain of custody was established and the circuit court didn’t err in admitting the test results.
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by admin
on September 7, 2015
State v. James Michael Warren, 2014AP792-CR, District 3, 8/4/15 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)
Under State v. Bohling, 173 Wis. 2d 529, 494 N.W.2d 399 (1993), which was the law at the time of Warren’s arrest, a person must present their reasonable objection and the basis for the objection at the time of the blood draw, and failure to do so means the person can’t raise it later in the case. [continue reading…]
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by admin
on September 7, 2015
State v. Kim M. Lerdahl, 2014AP2119-CR, District 3, 8/4/15 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)
In an interesting decision that sheds some light on how to apply the newly-adopted “reasonable mistake of law” doctrine to traffic stops, State v. Houghton, 2015 WI 79, ___ Wis. 2d ___, ___ N.W.2d ___, the court of appeals holds that it a police officer’s mistaken belief that the truck she stopped was required to have a center high-mount stop (or brake) lamp (CHMSL) was not a reasonable mistake of law and, therefore, the stop was unlawful. [continue reading…]
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by admin
on September 7, 2015
Michelle L. Steele & State of Wisconsin v. Jason G. Foster, 2014AP1947, District 3, 7/31/15 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)
The circuit court’s held Foster in contempt for failing to comply with the court’s child support payment order. While the circuit court’s findings of fact in support of its contempt order were “lacking” (¶19), the record overall supports the contempt order. [continue reading…]
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by admin
on September 7, 2015
State v. Albert J. Chagnon, 2015 WI App 66; case activity (including briefs)
Under § 948.14, no registered sex offender may intentionally “capture a representation” of a minor without consent of the minor’s parent or guardian. The phrase “captures a representation” is defined in § 942.09(1)(a) to mean “takes a photograph, makes a motion picture, videotape, or other visual representation, or records or stores in any medium data that represents a visual image.” The court of appeals concludes the phrase “captures a representation” cannot reasonably be construed to apply to Chagnon’s act of cutting pictures of minors from magazines and newspapers, pasting them into a notebook, and adorning the pictures with graphic sexual comments. [continue reading…]
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by admin
on September 7, 2015
Dane County DHS v. D.M., 2014AP2291, District 4, 7/30/15 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity
Trial counsel wasn’t ineffective for arguing § 48.415(6) is unconstitutional as applied to D.M., as she fails to demonstrate that the County made it impossible for her to satisfy the conditions for return of her child, D.L. [continue reading…]
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by admin
on September 7, 2015
Oneida County v. Randall J. Busarow, 2014AP2766, District 3, 7/28/15 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)
Though there wasn’t direct evidence of exactly when Busarow drove and whether he was intoxicated at that time, the state need not prove the elements of an offense only by direct evidence; reasonable inferences from the evidence may suffice. Bautista v. State, 53 Wis. 2d 218, 223, 191 N.W.2d 725 (1971). The evidence in this case supported the reasonable inferences that Busarow was intoxicated when he drove and that he drove within three hours of the blood test. [continue reading…]
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by admin
on September 7, 2015
State v. Tammy R. Fullmer, 2015AP640-CR, District 4, 7/30/15 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)
Trial counsel was deficient for failing to effectively impeach the officer’s testimony that Fullmer failed to stop in front of a stop line because the intersection in question didn’t have a stop line; however, there were multiple other observations the officer made that justified the traffic stop even in the absence of the stop line violation (e.g., extremely slow driving, driving down the middle of a two lane road, weaving in her lane), so Fullmer wasn’t prejudiced. (¶¶4-7, 11, 14). [continue reading…]
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