In Judge William Brash’s first published appellate opinion, he tackles the hearsay exception for dying declarations.
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Court fumbles with abortion-case ruling
The Court of Appeals rejected Planned Parenthood’s bid for declaratory judgment on the construction of two abortion statutes, and in the process damaged the idea of justiciability.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Community caretaker function case highlights decline of high court
A majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court justices expanded the contours of the community-caretaker exception to the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement even while embarrassing themselves through the way they reached their decision.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Court stretches in heroin blood draw case
In a case involving suspected heroin abuse, the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided a warrantless blood draw was justified primarily because heroin tends to dissipate rapidly in a person's bloodstream.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Does long arm of Wisconsin law extend down under?
The Court of Appeals has ruled that a Wisconsin resident cannot obtain long-arm jurisdiction over the Sydney Morning Herald without offending the Due Process Clause.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Apartment parking garage is not curtilage
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled that a parking garage that lies beneath an apartment building and has locked entrances is not protected curtilage under the Fourth Amendment.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Errors abound in child sexual assault case
An attorney’s recent representation of a defendant charged with child sexual assault was so ineffective that the defendant’s constitutional right to counsel was violated and his convictions reversed.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Extending the reach of Daubert
The Court of Appeals has once again extended the application of Daubert standards in Wisconsin, this time to a social worker’s testimony in a case involving the sexual assault of a child.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Divided appeals court affirms right of confrontation only at trials
The Court of Appeals has affirmed that it's not only the rules of evidence that do not apply in criminal pretrial proceedings; equally inapplicable is the right of confrontation.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Attorney loses appeal of his own criminal conviction
The Court of Appeals has rejected a disbarred attorney’s pro se bid to overturn his felony conviction for theft.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Choice of wrong legal route wastes opportunity in adoption case
The attorney for a same-sex couple recently tried unsuccessfully to use an adoption action to challenge the constitutionality of statutes related to artificial insemination and to the presumption of paternity stemming from marriage.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Heroin case yields not-so discreet test of court’s sentencing discretion
The District 2 Court of Appeals recently outdid itself for conciseness by issuing a five-page decision.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Child porn case pushes new justice’s work into limelight
On the same day that Rebecca Bradley was appointed to the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals released her first appellate opinion that has been recommended for publication.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Homicide by text message
In a case of reckless homicide by text messages, a defendant sought to suppress evidence of the messages themselves. The trial court denied his motion and the Court of Appeals affirmed.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Defamation on Facebook
In this age of cyberspace incivility, do remarks on Facebook that impugn a person’s reputation and character constitute defamation?
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Dog bite case leads to unusual turn to emergency doctrine
In a case that saw a woman injured while trying to pull her dog from the jaws of a pit bull, a judge’s unrequested jury instruction concerning the emergency doctrine and unrequested restructuring of the verdict form's damages section led to a remand for a new trial.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Daubert standard weighs on medical witness
A medical-malpractice case — an area of litigation replete with expert testimony — recently spurred the Court of Appeals to examine how Daubert principles should be applied to medical experts.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: State Supreme Court keeps on truckin’
Can a jury consider the training and experience of a semi-trailer truck driver in determining his negligence? Is a commercially licensed truck driver held to higher standard of care when a semi-trailer is involved in a collision?
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Drunken driving case leads Supreme Court to correct Court of Appeals
The Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously reversed the Court of Appeals in a decision that would have remanded a case to the circuit court in order to expose a drunken driver to a higher maximum sentence.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Court helps define when open-records net can take in personal notes
When a mid-state newspaper made a full-court press for the release of employee notes that were taken down during a school district’s disciplinary investigation, the Court of Appeals took the opportunity to construe an exception to the public-records law.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: In first opinion as chief justice, Roggensack breaks little ground
In her first opinion identifying her as chief justice, Pat Roggensack merely applied known law rather than establishing or construing new law. She nonetheless wrote for a unanimous court.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Elections don’t turn judges into politicians
In a surprising decision delivered by Chief Justice John Roberts, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld state rules forbidding judicial candidates from personally asking donors for campaign money.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Dog days of summer arrive early for US high court
For the second time in as many years, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided a dog-sniffing case.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Court opens door for more ‘other-acts evidence’
In keeping with last year’s legislative changes to the state’s other-acts evidence statute, the conservative majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court took a recent case involving the sexual assault of a child as an occasion to liberalize its application of this sort of evidence.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Good-faith exception to exclusionary rule
In a hotly contested case about suppressing a dog’s sniff search of a residence, the Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously decided that the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule applied.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Crawford issue case shines light on expert reports
The Court of Appeals recently decided a Crawford issue in a murder trial. In so doing, it emphasized the importance of bringing in needed experts to testify.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Appeals decision raises more questions than it answers
The Court of Appeals has decided that expressing opinions is not whistleblowing. But what constitutes opinion and what constitutes whistleblowing?
Read More »BENCH BLOG: High court correct in substitution ruling
In a rare unanimous decision, the Wisconsin Supreme Court acted to protect a criminal defendant’s statutory right to peremptory substitution of judge.
Read More »BENCH BLOG: Decision should guide cases involving Internet advertising
Internet advertising is commonplace. But what happens when the sale of advertised goods goes awry and an out-of-state advertiser is sued in Wisconsin?
Read More »BENCH BLOG: High court muddies the waters
In a pair of decisions released on the same day, the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided that manure and septage are pollutants at the point they contaminate wells.
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