State v. Green
| Decision Date | 09 May 2023 |
| Docket Number | 2022AP151-CR |
| Parties | State of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Martell A. Green, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Wisconsin Court of Appeals |
This opinion will not be published. See WIS. STAT. RULE 809.23(1)(b)5.
APPEAL from a judgment and an order of the circuit court for Forest County: No. 2019CF21 LEON D. STENZ, Judge. Affirmed.
Before Stark, P.J., Hruz and Gill, JJ.
Per curiam opinions may not be cited in any court of this state as precedent or authority, except for the limited purposes specified in Wis.Stat. Rule 809.23(3).
¶1 Martell A. Green appeals from a judgment convicting him following a jury trial, of possession with intent to deliver more than three but not more than ten grams of heroin; possession with intent to deliver more than fifteen but not more than forty grams of cocaine; and possession of drug paraphernalia each as a party to the crime and as a repeater. He also appeals from the circuit court's order denying his postconviction motion for a new trial. Green appeals on several bases, including: (1) the court's denial of his severance motion; (2) the State's failure to comply with its discovery obligations; (3) the State's failure to correct false witness testimony; and (4) multiple claims of ineffective assistance of counsel. We reject all Green's claims and affirm.
¶2 The State charged Green, Keotis Hamilton, and Devon Bell in a joint criminal complaint. It alleged that on January 8, 2019 Detective Sergeants Thomas Robinson and Anthony Crum,[1] with the Forest County Sheriff's Office, conducted a traffic stop on a vehicle driven by Green in which Hamilton and Bell were passengers. The detectives stopped the vehicle after observing that Green was not wearing his seatbelt. After performing a records check on all three men, officers learned that Hamilton had an outstanding arrest warrant. A search of the vehicle revealed a small scale that tested positive for cocaine as well as a "torn baggie."
¶3 The men were all arrested. At the jail, officers located both heroin and cocaine hidden inside Hamilton's rectum. No contraband was found on Green during a search. Green told law enforcement that he was offered $200 to drive Bell and Hamilton to Forest County but that he otherwise had no knowledge of any drugs in the vehicle.
¶4 The State charged all three with possession with intent to deliver heroin, possession with intent to deliver cocaine, and possession of drug paraphernalia, each as a party to the crime and as a repeater. Pretrial, Green's defense counsel[2] filed several requests to sever the cases for trial.[3] Each time, the court denied Green's request, finding that the charges were "intrinsically intertwined" and that Green had failed to establish substantial prejudice. Furthermore, the court observed that any testimony from Hamilton regarding who owned the drugs would not be exculpatory, as Green was charged as a party to the crime. The court concluded that it had not been presented with any persuasive argument that the codefendants' trial defenses were antagonistic to one another.
¶5 The morning of trial, Hamilton entered guilty pleas. At that time, Green renewed his severance motion, arguing "inconsistent" and "antagonistic" defenses between Bell and himself. While noting that it believed that Green had previously sought severance from only Hamilton and not Bell, the circuit court denied the motion, maintaining that severance was not appropriate, as both Green and Bell planned to argue that Hamilton had the drugs without their knowledge and without implicating each other.
¶6 At trial, the State presented testimony from Hamilton that he, Green, and Bell drove from Milwaukee to Forest County to sell heroin and cocaine. Hamilton explained that his role was to "introduce people" to Green and Bell so they could purchase the drugs from Green and Bell because he "was familiar with the area," and, in exchange, Hamilton would receive half the money they made. According to Hamilton, Green and Bell already had the cocaine in the vehicle when they picked him up, and then the three of them obtained the heroin from a home in Milwaukee. Hamilton testified that when law enforcement executed the stop on their vehicle, Bell threw the drugs at him in the backseat where he had been sleeping, and he "picked them up and stuffed them up my butt, rear end."
¶7 Shavonn Tuckwab also testified for the State. According to Tuckwab, the men arrived at her home in Forest County around 4:00 a.m. Tuckwab testified that she did not know the men before they arrived, but she let them in and showed them to a bedroom where she then saw all three men packaging cocaine and heroin into small bags.[4] She testified that Green gave her heroin and crack cocaine.[5] Later that morning, the men left Tuckwab's home and were then stopped by law enforcement. Tuckwab admitted that she was a heroin addict, that she had recently relapsed, and that she was suffering drug withdrawal symptoms during her testimony.
¶8 Green's defense at trial was that the State could not meet its burden to prove that Green knew that Hamilton had drugs. Both defense counsel and Bell's attorney sought to undermine Hamilton's and Tuckwab's credibility by highlighting the agreements they had made with the State in exchange for their testimony. In closing, defense counsel suggested Hamilton was framing Green to lessen his own responsibility. He also claimed that Tuckwab's story did not make sense and that she and Hamilton actually knew each other before the incident.
¶9 The jury found Green guilty of all three charges. The next day, the circuit court sentenced Green to concurrent sentences totaling twenty-six years.
¶10 Postconviction, Green moved for a new trial or, in the alternative, a new sentencing hearing. He claimed: (1) the circuit court erred by denying severance; (2) the court erred by denying Green's judicial substitution request; (3) the State failed to comply with its discovery obligations under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963); (4) the court erred by admitting untimely disclosed evidence; (5) the State engaged in misconduct by failing to correct false witness testimony; (6) defense counsel provided ineffective assistance; and (7) Green's sentence was unduly harsh and excessive. The court held a Machner[6] hearing on the motion, wherein defense counsel and Crum testified. The court ultimately denied Green's motion for a new trial in an oral ruling and later by written order.[7]Green appeals.
¶11 On appeal, Green renews the majority of the claims contained in his postconviction motion. For the reasons that follow, we deny each of his claims.[8]
¶12 First, Green argues that we should grant him a new trial because the circuit court erred by denying his multiple requests to be tried separately from his codefendants.[9] Wisconsin Stat. § 971.12(3) provides that a circuit court may order separate trials where the defendants' cases are initially joined if it appears that a defendant would be prejudiced by a joint trial. "[T]he proper joinder of criminal offenses is presumptively non-prejudicial." State v. Prescott, 2012 WI.App. 136, ¶13, 345 Wis.2d 313, 825 N.W.2d 515. "In order to rebut that presumption, the defendant must show substantial prejudice to his [or her] defense; some prejudice is insufficient." Id. Severance is also required when the defendants intend to advance conflicting or antagonistic defenses or there would be presented at the trial an entire line of evidence relevant to the liability of only one defendant. State v. Shears, 68 Wis.2d 217, 234-35, 229 N.W.2d 103 (1975). We review a circuit court's severance decision for an erroneous exercise of discretion. State v. Bettinger, 100 Wis.2d 691, 696, 303 N.W.2d 585 (1981).
¶13 On appeal, Green generally claims that he "struggle[d] … presenting his defense" at trial because some of Hamilton's statements that he wished to present "exculpate" Green but "inculpate" Bell. According to Green, his defense at trial was that "he wasn't a part of the conspiracy formed by Bell and Hamilton and that those two executed the crimes in question." Thus, Green asserts that the men had antagonistic defenses.[10]
¶14 We conclude that the circuit court did not erroneously exercise its discretion by denying Green's multiple severance motions. On appeal, Green renews his arguments that the court should have granted severance from Hamilton. In general, Green argues that his defense was antagonistic to Hamilton's defense because Hamilton had the drugs, and Green planned to argue that he had no knowledge of any illegal activity. However, once Hamilton entered his pleas, that issue became moot and could not serve as a continuing basis to sever Green's case for trial before the circuit court or as a basis to grant a new trial on appeal.
¶15 As to Green's arguments regarding severance from Bell, Green asserts that he was denied the benefit of "various statements made by Hamilton," which are "exculpatory to Green."[11] Defense counsel addressed the potential of using these statements before the circuit court, and Bell's counsel suggested that if defense counsel intended to use them, the statements would need to be redacted to protect his client. According to Green, "if redacted, Green would lose any benefit [as] the evidence would no longer support Green's defense," and while the statements ultimately were not used, "had the codefendants['] cases been severed for trial, those statements would have been used and would have impacted the outcome."
¶16 Defense counsel made this same argument before the circuit court on the first day of trial. Defense counsel explained to the court that Green's defense was "[p]otentially...
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