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State Supreme Court to hear 7 more cases

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//June 30, 2016//

State Supreme Court to hear 7 more cases

By: Erika Strebel, [email protected]//June 30, 2016//

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has voted to accept seven new cases.

The justices voted this month to accept cases from Wauksha, Dane, Ozaukee, Milwaukee and Sheboygan counties, according to a news release Thursday. The high court declined to review 60 other cases.

Of the seven cases, two came from appellate courts, one was a petition for a supervisory writ and the remaining three stemmed from a party’s petitioning the high court for review. Supervisory writs let the high court use its power to directly control lower courts in matters involving non-discretionary functions that may harm an appellant.

The justice will take up the following cases:

  • Melchert v. Pro Electric is a civil lawsuit out of Waukesha County involving a dispute between the owners of a Brookfield property who sued a government contractor over damage caused by the installation of a traffic signal in 2012. The trial court and the District Two 2 of Appeals found for Pro Electric, ruling that the contractor was an agent of the state’s Department of Transportation and simply did what the agency had asked, thereby triggering the state’s legal-immunity statutes. The court has ordered the parties to also discuss whether the Wis. Stat. 182.0175(2), the Diggers Hotline statute, created a ministerial duty, or a duty to obey instructions with no room for discretion.
  • Teague v. Schimel involves  three plaintiffs who allege that the state’s Department of Justice knowingly distributes inaccurate information each time it releases a criminal history report referring to them. The DOJ has a criminal history database that the public can search for free. The Dane County Circuit Court had dismissed the lawsuit, which had alleged equal-protection and constitutional violations. The District 4 Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s decision, noting the plaintiffs had failed to state any statutory or constitutional violations.
  • State v. Denny is a criminal case out of Ozaukee County involving a trial court’s order denying a defendant’s motion to test certain items for the presence of DNA. Denny and his brother had been found guilty of being a party to first-degree murder in 1982 and sentenced to life in prison for stabbing a man to death. Denny moved in May 2014 for 13 items to be tested for DNA. He argued that, had the items been tested for DNA in 1982, he might not have been prosecuted or convicted. The circuit court denied the request, finding that the state statute allowing for DNA testing in such cases was mean to exonerate, not to show that someone else was involved in the murder. The District Two Court of Appeals reversed, finding that Denny needed only to fulfill the requirements of the statute to be allowed to test the materials.
  • Voces de la Frontera Inc. v. Clark  involves an appeal in Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke’s public records dispute with an immigrant-advocacy group that filed a record request seeking the release of all federal immigration detainer forms he had received over the past four months. Clarke released 12 forms, of which parts had been blacked out. The group responded by demanding to see the complete forms. Clarke has argued that federal prevents him from doing so. A trial court judge ordered Clarke to release the records, and the District 1 Court of Appeals affirmed the order in April.
  • State v. Talley deals with a defendant who was found to be sexually violent and committed in 2005 and petitioned for discharge in 2011 and 2012. His 2011 petition was denied by both the trial court and the District 4 Court of Appeals, and the high court declined to review his appeal. Talley is appealing the trial court’s and district court’s denials of his 2012 petition.
  • Redmond v. Foster is a case out of Sheboygan County involving a criminal defendant who was charged and convicted of two counts of burglary. He was sentenced to two years of confinement and three years of extended supervision for one count and five years of probation for the other. While on probation, he is suspected of beating a pregnant woman and an 8-year-old. Proceedings were held to put him back in jail. An administrative-law judge revoked his probation and extended supervision. He filed an appeal, which the state Department of Hearings and Appeals denied. He later petitioned the trial court, alleging his counsel at the revocation hearing had been ineffective. The trial court dismissed the matter, and Remond appealed, arguing he had no other remedy. The District 2 Court of Appeals asked the high court to take up the matter.

The justices have also agreed to decide in Universal Processing v. Circuit Court of Milwaukee whether a trial court overstepped its authority in appointing a referee to handle pretrial matters in a business-contract dispute between an independent contractor and a firm that provides processing services for bank cards.

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