By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//October 23, 2013//
Wisconsin Court of Appeals
Criminal
Criminal Procedure – other acts evidence
A jury found Richard Hessil guilty of resisting an officer and failing to obey a traffic officer or signal, and he appeals. He claims that the trial court erroneously exercised its discretion when it denied his motion to admit “other acts” evidence. Specifically, Hessil sought to use citizen complaints and police employment records to cast Village of Butler Police Department Lieutenant Brian Pergande’s character for truthfulness in doubt pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 904.04(2). But, as we will show, those incidents had absolutely nothing to do with truthfulness, except for arguably one instance, which would not be enough to warrant a dispute about his character for truthfulness. We suspect that the proffer was to show that Pergande was a bad person, which is not a permissible purpose under Wisconsin law. We also reject Hessil’s correlative claim regarding newly discovered evidence because that evidence had the same kind of deficiency as the rest of it. We affirm. This opinion will not be published.
Dist II, Waukesha County, Kieffer, J., Brown, C.J.
Attorneys: For Appellant: Bates, Gregory, Kenosha; For Respondent: Weber, Gregory M., Madison; Suha, Timothy, Waukesha