Wisconsin Law Journal – WI Legal News & Resources Wisconsin Legal News & Resources

Criminal Procedure Voir dire; equal protection When a defendant raises an equal protection challenge to the prosecutor’s peremptory strikes, the court may only consider the prosecutor’s original justification for striking a juror. “In this case, when the Batson challenge was ...

Tagged with: Criminal Procedure Digest equal protection Voir dire

Civil Procedure Appeal; length of brief; sanctions Flagrant violations of FRAP 32 may warrant dismissal of the appeal. “The flagrancy of the violation in this case might well justify the dismissal of the appeal: let this be a warning. But ...

Tagged with: appeal Civil Procedure Digest sanctions

Labor Duty of good faith A government employer does not have a unilateral duty to disclose to the Union that it is considering privatizing some positions. “The language of the 2007-08 collective bargaining agreement clearly gave the County the right ...

Tagged with: Labor Digest

Bankruptcy Estate Where an unambiguous deed gives the debtor an interest in real estate, the trustee is authorized to sell it for the benefit of creditors. “As the Wisconsin Supreme Court has observed, if a deed is susceptible to only ...

Tagged with: Bankruptcy Digest

Civil Procedure Pleadings; amendment Where the trial would need to be adjourned and discovery conducted, it was not an abuse of discretion to deny a mid-trial motion to amend the pleadings. “Clearly, the district court was well within its discretion ...

Tagged with: amendment Civil Procedure Digest

Sentencing Modification Terrance D. Prude, pro se, appeals the circuit court’s order denying his motion seeking sentence modification. He argues there is a new factor justifying sentence modification. Alternatively, Prude argues he is entitled to sentence modification in the interest ...

Tagged with: modification Sentencing Digest

Search and Seizure Search warrants; probable cause Richard Aderholdt appeals a judgment convicting him of manufacturing THC with intent to deliver and maintaining a drug trafficking place. He argues that the circuit court erred when it denied his motion to ...

Tagged with: probable cause Search and Seizure Digest Search warrants

Negligent Handling of Burning Materials Sufficiency of the evidence Kerry Collins appeals the judgment, entered following a jury verdict, convicting him of one count of negligent handling of burning material, contrary to Wis. Stat. § 941.10 (2009-10). Collins argues that ...

Tagged with: Sufficiency of the evidence

Criminal Procedure Successive appeals Lawrence Williams appeals pro se from an order denying his Wis. Stat. § 974.06 postconviction motion, from an order denying his motion for reconsideration, and from the underlying judgment of conviction. We conclude that Williams’s postconviction ...

Tagged with: Criminal Procedure Digest State v. Williams Successive appeals

Criminal Procedure Breach of plea agreement Elbert J. Hughes appeals a judgment of conviction and an order denying his postconviction motion. Hughes argues that the prosecutor’s remarks during sentencing breached the parties’ plea agreement and that his trial counsel was ...

Tagged with: Breach of plea agreement Criminal Procedure Digest

Criminal Procedure Successive appeals Chris Lamar Crittendon, pro se, appeals the circuit court’s order denying his motion for postcommitment relief under Wis. Stat. § 974.06 (2007-08). He challenges the circuit court’s exercise of sentencing discretion and contends that he should ...

Tagged with: Criminal Procedure Digest Successive appeals

Criminal Procedure Confrontation Clause Tony Colunga appeals a judgment convicting him of one count of first-degree sexual assault of a child. He argues: (1) that the circuit court violated his constitutional right to confront the witnesses against him when it ...

Tagged with: Confrontation Clause Criminal Procedure Digest

Criminal Procedure Plea withdrawal Freddie J. Nash, pro se, appeals from an order denying his Wis. Stat. § 974.06 motion. Nash challenges the circuit court’s failure, during the original plea colloquy, to advise him that it was not bound by ...

Tagged with: Criminal Procedure Digest Plea withdrawal

Remedies Domestic abuse injunctions Joel Portmann appeals a domestic abuse injunction and orders denying his motion for reconsideration or a new hearing and motion to vacate the injunction under Wis. Stat. §§ 806.07(1)(b) and (h) (2009-10). He argues that Leslie ...

Tagged with: Remedies

Employment Overtime The New Horizon Center, Inc., appeals the judgment entered in favor of Tahnisha Lamb by the circuit court following its de novo review of a court commissioner’s determination. See Wis. Stat. § 799.207. Lamb cross-appeals, contending that the ...

Tagged with: Employment Digest Overtime

Employment Unemployment compensation; misconduct The Labor and Industry Review Commission appeals from a judgment reversing the Commission’s finding that Albert Galindo’s positive drug test for marijuana constituted misconduct for unemployment compensation purposes within the meaning of Wis. Stat. § 108.04(5). ...

Tagged with: Employment Digest misconduct Unemployment compensation

Contracts Good faith; tortious interference Tri-Corp Housing, Inc., appeals the grant of summary judgment to the Wisconsin Housing and Economic Development Authority (“WHEDA”) on WHEDA’s foreclosure claim against Tri-Corp. Tri-Corp also appeals the grant of summary judgment in favor of ...

Tagged with: Contracts Digest Good faith

Civil Procedure Personal jurisdiction; waiver Patricia Donovan, pro se, appeals a circuit court order affirming a harassment injunction entered against her by a family court commissioner. Donovan argues the circuit court erred by failing to hold an evidentiary hearing on ...

Tagged with: Civil Procedure Digest Personal jurisdiction waiver

Civil Rights DNA testing A convicted state prisoner seeking DNA testing of crime-scene evidence may assert that claim in a civil rights action under 42 U.S.C. 1983. Measured against this Court’s prior holdings, Skinner has properly invoked §1983. This Court ...

Tagged with: Civil Rights Digest

Habeas Corpus AEDPA A motion to reduce a sentence under state law is an application for “collateral review” that triggers AEDPA’s tolling provision. The parties agree that the motion is not part of the direct review process, and both this ...

Tagged with: AEDPA Habeas Corpus

FOIA Exemptions; personnel rules Because Exemption 2 to FOIA encompasses only records relating to employee relations and human resources issues, it does not apply to a request for explosives maps and data. Exemption 2 shields only those records relating to ...

Tagged with: Exemptions FOIA

Employment USERRA An employer’s calculation of differential pay does not violate USERRA. “[T]he calculation employed by PPG does not amount to an adverse employment action. PPG considered his RESOLVE complaint and determined that its calculation of differential pay conformed with ...

Tagged with: Employment Digest

Sentencing Child pornography Where the district court imposed a below-guideline sentence, the sentence was reasonable. “Here, the district court went beyond what we deemed sufficient in Pape. Not only did the district court explicitly recognize its discretion to deviate from ...

Tagged with: Child Pornography Sentencing Digest

Sentencing Resentencing on remand A court resentencing a defendant after remand can base the new sentence on evidence that, although part of the original trial record, was not relied upon at the first sentencing. “Here, we ordered the district judge ...

Tagged with: Sentencing Digest

Sentencing Physical restraint enhancement Ordering and leading around a bank teller at gunpoint during a bank robbery warrants a physical restraint enhancement. “Black maintains the court should have followed the principle derived from Begay v. United States that when Congress ...

Tagged with: Sentencing Digest

Sentencing Illegal reentry In calculating the offense level for illegal reentry after removal, a sentence imposed on revocation of probation does not count under U.S.S.G. 2L1.2(b)91)(A)(i). “Our interpretation of the guideline is consistent with both the purpose behind the enhancement ...

Tagged with: Illegal reentry Sentencing Digest

Civil Procedure Mandamus; judicial recusal Where a party did not seek to stay district court proceedings after the judge declined to recuse herself, and the case has concluded, the petition for mandamus is denied. “Although he asked us for mandamus ...

Tagged with: Civil Procedure Digest judicial recusal mandamus

Sentencing ACCA; short-barreled shotguns Possession of a short-barreled shotgun is not a violent felony under the Armed Career Criminal Act. “Post-Begay, courts should draw a distinction between ‘active’ and ‘passive’ crimes to determine whether they involve violent and aggressive conduct. ...

Tagged with: ACCA Sentencing Digest

Criminal Procedure Confrontation Clause Anthony Smith appeals from the judgment entered on a jury verdict finding him guilty of armed robbery with threat of force as a party to the crime, contrary to Wis. Stat. §§ 943.32(2) (2009-10) and 939.05, ...

Tagged with: Confrontation Clause Criminal Procedure Digest State v. Smith

Sexual Assault of a Child Sentencing Matthew Pagel appeals from a judgment of conviction of three counts of sexual assault of a child by a school staff member and from an order denying his postconviction motion for sentence modification. He ...

Tagged with: Sentencing Digest Sexual assault of a child