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Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

By: Derek Hawkins//April 5, 2017//

Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

By: Derek Hawkins//April 5, 2017//

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WI Court of Appeals – District IV

Case Name: State of Wisconsin v. Karl W. Nichols

Case No.: 2016AP88-CR

Officials: Kloppenburg, P.J., Lundsten and Sherman, JJ.

Focus: Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

This appeal concerns defense counsel’s failure prior to trial to request that the State produce a written list that M.R.W., the child victim of an alleged sexual assault by Karl Nichols, had presented at the conclusion of a second forensic interview, and which M.R.W. said was “things that … I changed from the [first forensic] interview” three months earlier.1 After a trial at which the video recordings of both interviews were played to a jury, and several witnesses including M.R.W. testified, the jury found Nichols guilty of first-degree sexual assault of a child. On Nichols’s post-conviction motion, the circuit court vacated the judgment of conviction and dismissed the case with prejudice. The court ruled that Nichols’s trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to request the list prior to trial, and that the State failed to preserve and produce the list in violation of Nichols’s right to due process. The State appeals. We conclude that the circuit court should have rejected Nichols’s ineffective assistance and related due process arguments. In addition, Nichols argues that we previously erred when we denied his motion to dismiss this appeal for lack of jurisdiction. Nichols contends that we erred on the merits of that motion and that it was additional error to decide the motion in a one-judge order. We reject both arguments. Finally, we deny Nichols’s motion for sanctions for a frivolous appeal. Accordingly, we reverse and remand for further proceedings

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Attorney Derek A. Hawkins is the managing partner at Hawkins Law Offices LLC, where he heads up the firm’s startup law practice. He specializes in business formation, corporate governance, intellectual property protection, private equity and venture capital funding and mergers & acquisitions. Check out the website at www.hawkins-lawoffices.com or contact them at 262-737-8825.

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