Thursday

U Rah Rah Wis-con-sin:

The Wisconsin State Supreme Court has been on a roll recently. In a series of important criminal law decisions, Wisconsin has pushed back against the see-nothing, hear-nothing, do-nothing mentality that seems to plague so many courts these days.

Significantly, just this morning, the court invalidated a show-up ruling that: "evidence obtained from such a showup will not be admissible unless, based on the totality of the circumstances, the showup was necessary. A showup will not be necessary, however, unless the police lacked probable cause to make an arrest or, as a result of other exigent circumstances, could not have conducted a lineup or photo array." That's good language, and it suggests that the court is not insensitive to the vagaries of eyewitness identification testimony. You can download the decision Here

And in another recent case the court stood firm after a reversal from the big supremes, holding that "the fruit of the poisonous tree doctrine applies under the circumstances of this case under Article I, Section 8 of the Wisconsin Constitution. Where physical evidence is obtained as the direct result of an intentional Miranda violation, we conclude that our constitution requires that the evidence must be suppressed." That's right--the Wisconsin Supreme Court grounded a Miranda decision in State (rather than Federal) constitutional grounds.

What that means is that cops can't intentionally violate Miranda and still expect to use physical evidence they obtain as a result of the illegal questioning. You can grab that decision here.
(Thanks to DA for the tip)

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