By Margo Kirchner​

The Wisconsin Supreme Court said in two recent opinions that criminal defendants must meet the same standards as lawyers when appealing their cases if their actual lawyers abandon them before the appeal is filed.
 
That means incarcerated people fighting on their own behalf must meet the same deadlines and follow the same rules as lawyers even without access to the same resources, such as law books, paper, and online information.
 
In each of the two cases, the defendant told counsel he wanted to appeal, but counsel failed to file a required notice of intent to pursue postconviction relief, resulting in the loss of appeal rights.
 
Such a failure constitutes ineffective assistance of counsel. But in each case the Court held the defendant responsible for errors when acting on his own to restart his appeal.
 
Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley joined with Justices Ann Walsh Bradley and Rebecca Dallet in strong dissents in both cases.

​State v. Pope
 
In the first case, after four days of trial, a jury in Milwaukee County Circuit Court convicted Robert James Pope of first-degree intentional homicide as a party to the crime. In early July 1996, the court sentenced Pope to life imprisonment without parole.
 
Immediately after sentencing, Pope and his attorney, Michael Backes, signed a form indicating that Pope intended to pursue postconviction relief and that counsel would file a formal notice of the same within 20 days. Filing the formal notice sets in motion preparation of the trial transcript and appointment of appellate counsel. But Backes never filed the notice, and Pope’s direct appeal rights expired.
 
Pope and his mother tried repeatedly, without success, to reach Backes by phone to ask about the appeal.
 
About a year later, in August 1997, Pope contacted the State Public Defender’s Office to inquire about his appeal. The SPD told Pope there was no appeal, the office had no idea why the formal notice was never filed, and Pope could ask the court to extend the time for filing the notice.

By Gretchen Schuldt

​Jacob Maclin lost his effort to show there is racial bias in federal prosecutors' decisions about who gets charged with certain drug and gun cases in federal court, where penalties are heavier than in state court.

The numbers are clear – African Americans in Milwaukee face the harsher federal criminal penalty at a greater rate than do Whites in Milwaukee and elsewhere in the Eastern District of Wisconsin.

Federal prosecutors work with gun prosecutors in the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office to decide which cases should go federal, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office. The feds may never even find out about cases in other counties that could be prosecuted federally.

By Gretchen Schuldt

Shorewood Police Sergeant Cody J. Smith took action after Jonah Marciniak was found hanging in his cell during the early morning hours of Aug. 15, 2016.

First, Smith performed CPR. Then he doctored a Police Department document to show that he checked on Marciniak at 4:10 a.m., when he had not. Smith did not check on Marciniak during the 46 minutes from 3:33 a.m. to 4:19 a.m., when Smith found the 39-year-old inmate hanging.

Then he lied about checking on Marciniak. And lied. And lied. He lied to officers from the Greenfield Police Department, called in to investigate the death, on three separate occasions between Aug. 15 and Aug. 31,   2016, according to a criminal complaint. Smith admitted the truth only after he was confronted with a surveillance video clearly showing that he hadn't checked on Marciniak at 4:10 a.m.

Smith was fired and was charged with one misdemeanor count of obstructing an officer. It took until March 23,  2017, seven months after the hanging, to issue the complaint, but the case got wrapped up very quickly -– within five days – after that.

Smith was sentenced on March 28, 2017 to one day in jail. Because he had gone through the booking process, his jail sentence was considered already served, according to a transcript of the sentencing hearing. Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Jean Kies also fined Smith $500.

He remains in law enforcement today.

"I think the conviction is appropriate, given the tremendous lapse in judgment that this presents," prosecutor Benjamin Lindsay said at Smith's sentencing hearing. "An officer -- We rely on officers for their credibility, and that is something that is -- There's a level of community trust there. There's also trust that the Court places and our office places."

Smith was very busy the night of the hanging, defense lawyer Michael Steinle said at the sentencing hearing.

Smith "has no prior record," Steinle said. "He doesn't have anything in his personnel file. This is -- It is just one of those sad situations that he just made a bad judgment to make that entry, and he didn't have to. That's the sad part about it. As -- But when push came to shove, he did correct it, Judge, and he was too late. He had already told the -- Greenfield that, in fact, he had checked when he didn't."

A federal court lawsuit filed over Marciniak's death says that Smith failed to follow Shorewood Police Department policy, which requires visual checks of jail inmates every 30 minutes and of mentally unstable inmates – which the suit says Shorewood police knew Marciniak was was – every 15 minutes.

By Gretchen Schuldt

A Milwaukee police officer testified he would invite traffic stop subjects into his squad car if the stop was in the Downtown police district, but not if it was in a central city or North Side district.

Officer Froilan Santiago made the statements during a 2017 deposition taken during a Federal Court lawsuit alleging that Santiago used excessive force during a traffic stop. The suit is pending.

"So then getting back to my question," attorney Nathaniel Cade, Jr. asked Santiago, "how many times since 2006 have you initiated a stop of someone and suggested that they get out of the vehicle and get into the front seat and look at the computer?"

"Now, like I said, District 7, I wouldn't do," Santiago said. District 7 headquarters is at 3626 W. Fond du Lac Ave. on the city's North Side.

"Depends on the situation and environment," he continued. "District 1 is a different type of environment where it's more of people as far as the -- more able to communicate and more different lifestyle of the individual based on our training in District 1 -- or based on what -- my experience at District 1, it's a lot more common than if I was at District 7. "

District 1, Downtown, is headquartered at 749 W. State St.

He continued: "District 7, if you stop that person, that person is going to run. He might have drugs or guns, based on where I've worked at. District 7 or District 5."

District 5 is based at 2920 Vel R. Phillips Ave. 

"District 1, you have a high percentage of people who's in college, who's in business, work, and stuff like that, and you deal with them differently as far as – and their behavior at that moment in time. I don't know," Santiago said. "Like I said, it's just discretion of the individual of what's going on."

"So you're profiling the driver of the vehicle based on the district that you're in because it's more likely that if they're in a poor neighborhood, that it's drugs and guns?" Cade asked.

"You asked me how I'm going to perform my traffic stop," Santiago responded.

The plaintiff in the lawsuit, Jimmy Harris, alleges that Santiago in November 2010 stopped the car Harris was driving and asked him to get out of the vehicle. Santiago said he stopped the car because it was black and the color listed on DMV records as gray. It was about 4:45 p.m. and dark at the time of the stop.

The same mistake about the car's color had been made previously, according to the suit, and Harris offered to show Santiago on the squad computer how the error was made. Santiago accepted, but then "suddenly grabbed Mr. Harris' left arm that had recently been operated on and used it to maneuver Mr. Harris..."

This 29-minute video shows parts of Harris' encounter with police.

By Gretchen Schuldt

​A 39-year-old man hung himself in the Shorewood jail after police detained him without reason, searched him improperly, locked him in a cell alone despite knowing he suffered from mental illness,  and failed to check on him in a timely manner, according to a Federal Court lawsuit filed Friday.

The suit was filed by the son and estate of Jonah Marciniak, who died on Aug. 21, 2016. Izariah Jump, Marciniak's son, was 16 years old at the time.

The suit alleges false arrest and unlawful detention, unreasonable search, deprivation of due process, failure to provide medical care, failure to protect from self-harm, and wrongful death. 

According to the suit:

Shorewood police responded to a Marciniak drug overdose on Aug. 12, 2016. Marciniak told them then that he suffered from depression. The next day, his roommate, Eric Harper, told police that Marciniak had overdosed and attempted suicide previously and suffered from several kinds of mental illness, including depression, anxiety and bi-polar disorders.

Two days later, Harper fell out of a fourth-floor window. When police responded, they tried to gain access to the apartment that Harper fell from so they could check on the welfare of anyone inside. They rang the buzzer and pounded on the door but received no response. The North Shore Fire Department eventually gained access.

Two defendants in the suit, Police Officers Cody J. Smith and Nicolas Taraboi found Marciniak naked, face down on a bed after a "loud search" of the rest of the apartment. Smith also had responded to the drug overdose days earlier.

"Jonah had very shallow breaths and did not respond to the SPD police officers’ multiple attempts to wake him," the suit says. "The SPD police officers screamed commands at Jonah, but there were no movements from him."

Smith recognized Marciniak when they rolled him onto his back, according to the suit. 

"It was obvious to all present that Jonah was impaired," the suit says.

By Gretchen Schuldt

​Federal prosecutors send staff members to the Milwaukee County District Attorney's office to look through gun cases to determine which ones should go to the tougher federal system, according to federal court filings.

Milwaukee County, home to the largest share of African Americans in the state, is the only county of the 28 counties in the Eastern District of Wisconsin to get that personal touch from the U.S. government, according the filings by Assistant Federal Defender Joshua D. Uller.

The practice results in a disproportionately large share of African Americans getting charged with certain gun crimes, he said.

Some 50 percent (90 of 176) of the people charged with drug-trafficking offenses in the Eastern District were Black during the period from January 2017 through June 2018, though the district is just 10 percent African American, according to Uller's filings. Whites accounted for just 23 percent of people charged with drug trafficking, though the district is 84 percent White.

Thirty-five of the drug trafficking defendants also were charged with possessing a firearm in furtherance of the crime. Twenty-eight, or 80 percent, of those defendants were Black. Three, or 9 percent, were White, he said.

The firearm charge carries a mandatory minimum of five years in prison, which must be served consecutively to any other sentence.

And 100 percent of the 10 cases alleging possessing a firearm in furtherance of a marijuana trafficking crime were brought against minorities. Nine were filed against Black defendants originally arrested by Milwaukee police. The 10th minority was an Arab, Uller said. (Arabs are legally considered White.)

Uller says the charging disparity demonstrates selective prosecution and enforcement. He is asking a federal judge to allow the Federal Defenders Office to examine materials from the U.S. Attorney's Office that provide more evidence about how cases are selected for federal prosecution.

​Prosecutors deny any selective prosecution or enforcement and U.S. Magistrate Judge Nancy Joseph has recommended Uller be denied access to the materials he wants.

By Gretchen Schuldt

​A judge erred when he said that sperm DNA evidence helpful to the defendant in a sexual assault case was inadmissible under the state's rape shield law, the State Court of Appeals has ruled.

The shield law disallows evidence of a sexual assault victim's sexual history because of its prejudicial effect.

"In general, 'all relevant evidence is admissible,'” the panel said, quoting state law.  The case now heads back to Sauk County Circuit Court.

The unsigned decision by the District IV Court of Appeals panel reversed a ruling by Circuit Judge Todd J. Hepler, who barred sperm DNA evidence that excluded defendant Juan L. Walker as the source of sperm found on the victim's bed sheet. 
​
Hepler said the sperm was evidence of "prior sexual conduct" of the victim, Katherine, or someone else, and thus was inadmissible under the rape shield law.

Defendant Walker also was excluded as the source of other, non-sperm DNA evidence, but Hepler also ruled that evidence inadmissible.

Hepler said the absence of Walker's DNA on the sheet "does not necessarily equate to the absence of Mr Walker at the scene. Simply because there is no DNA there on that particular bed sheet does not necessarily mean that Mr. Walker was not there. The presence of another's DNA doesn't equate to the absence of another's DNA either."

The victim, identified only as Katherine, had been drinking before the assault, according to the appeal panel. Two friends helped her after she vomited outside a Lake Delton restaurant. Walker, whom none of the three had met before, stopped, offered to help, and eventually gave them a ride to Katherine's home, according  to the appeals panel, which included Appeals Judges Paul Lundsten, Brian Blanchard, and Michael R. Fitzpatrick.

By Margo Kirchner

​A federal judge’s refusal to delay trial for two years so that “Coupon King” Thomas (Chris) Balsiger could be represented by a particular lawyer did not violate Balsiger’s right to counsel, a federal appeals court ruled last week.
 
The ruling means that the 10-year federal criminal case against Balsiger will not be retried.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit affirmed the bulk of Balsiger’s conviction and sentence with the exception of a recalculated forfeiture amount.
 
Balsiger ran International Outsourcing Services, one of the nation’s largest product-coupon processors, in El Paso, Texas, and Bloomington, Indiana.
 
He and 10 others were indicted in 2007 on 25 counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, and conspiracy to obstruct justice. The fraud allegations involved coupon payments made by Wisconsin manufacturers Sargento Foods, Good Humor/Breyers Ice Cream, Kimberly-Clark, LeSaffre Yeast, and S.C. Johnson & Sons. The indictment alleged that the wire-fraud scheme caused $250 million in losses to manufacturers.
 
Pretrial proceedings dragged on for years. During that time, in July 2014, Balsiger’s lawyer, Joseph Sib Abraham, passed away.
 
U.S. District Judge Charles N. Clevert, Jr. was notified in August 2014, and a lawyer who worked with Abraham said Balsiger expected to hire new counsel within 30 days.  Yet by early December 2014 no new attorney had appeared in the case and Balsiger claimed he could not then hire a new attorney due to financial difficulties.
 
Clevert set trial for October 2015.
 
At a status conference in early January 2015 Balsiger told Clevert he planned to hire El Paso attorney Richard Esper, and asked for a deadline of April 1, 2015, to hire Esper. Balsiger said he did not have sufficient funds and could not sell his home because of a filing the government made against the property.
 
Clevert soon learned that Esper could not be ready for trial until 2017 at the earliest. The judge also found that Balsiger could afford to hire a lawyer and ordered him to hire someone by Feb. 17, 2015.
 
The court found that Balsiger was not working diligently to hire counsel and warned that failure to hire an attorney would be considered a waiver of the right to counsel.

By Gretchen Schuldt

​Holding preliminary hearings without legal representation for poor defendants was "the practice" in Wood County when a defense lawyer wasn't immediately available, an assistant public defender told a reserve judge in March.

A second preliminary hearing could be held when a lawyer was eventually found, attorney Michael Scarantino explained to Reserve Judge Frederic Fleishauer, according to a transcript of the hearing.

The Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution guarantees defendants in criminal cases the right to effective counsel. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has specifically ruled that defendants are entitled to counsel at preliminary hearings. The U.S. Supreme Court also has ruled that defendants are entitled to counsel at their "prelims."

There hearings are held to determine whether there is enough evidence to bind a defendant over for trial.

Defense attorney Hank Schultz, a past president of the Wisconsin Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (WACDL), said it is "unconscionable that anyone in this system would condone proceeding without an attorney," especially after one had been requested.

Harm done to an unrepresented defendant during a preliminary hearing "can't be undone even if you have a second preliminary hearing," he said.