Supreme Court affirms ‘once waived, always waived’ applies in cases involving more that one county

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court has decided the “once waived, always waived” rule for sending juveniles to adult court applies from county to county.

On Tuesday, a 4-2 majority of the justices upheld an appeals court’s previous ruling that there is no requirement that juveniles be waived into adult court waivers on separate occasions if they are to be tried in more than one county.

The dispute started with a robbery and high-speed chase in 2015. Court documents say 16-year-old Matthew Hinkle robbed someone of a car in Milwaukee County and drove to Fond du Lac. When spotted by police in Fond du Lac, Hinkle took off, leading officers on a chase that reached speeds of 120 miles an hour. Police caught up to him after he smashed the car into an SUV and ran off on foot.

Hinkle was charged in both Milwaukee and Fond du Lac counties. He was initially waived into adult court in Milwaukee County.  Meanwhile, the Fond du Lac County circuit court considered the state’s petition to waive him into adult court. Court documents say everyone, including Hinkle’s lawyer, agreed the rule referred to as “once waived, always waived” meant that Milwaukee County’s decision to waive him into adult court required Fond du Lac County to also do so.

Hinkle was charged as an adult in both counties and received six years of initial confinement, three years of extended supervision and two years of probation for the Fond du Lac County charges. He filed a post-conviction motion to transfer the counts back to juvenile court, contending Fond du Lac County had needed a prior waiver from its own county to send him to adult court without a waiver hearing. The Fond du Lac County circuit court rejected that argument, and the court of appeals affirmed that opinion.

After hearing oral arguments in September, the state Supreme Court affirmed the appellate court’s ruling. In the opinion released Tuesday, the majority concluded “the text of the statute does not impose a county-specific limitation for the ‘once waived, always waived’ rule.”

Justice Rebecca Dallet wrote in a dissenting opinion, “The only authority that the majority cites for the proposition that ‘once waived, always waived’ is ‘routinely used by attorneys and judges in the juvenile justice system’ is the Juvenile Judicial Benchbook. The Benchbook alone is not independent legal authority and it provides no statute or case as authority for this ‘practice.'”

Dallet and Justice Ann Walsh Bradley dissented. Judge Brian Hagedorn did not participate. Follow @WLJReporter