State v. Mannery
| Decision Date | 16 May 2023 |
| Docket Number | 2019AP1242-CR,2019AP1243-CR |
| Parties | State of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. John Earl Mannery, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Wisconsin Court of Appeals |
This opinion will not be published. See Wis. Stat. Rule 809.23(1)(b)5.
APPEALS from judgments and orders of the circuit court for Milwaukee County Nos. 2016CF1896 2016CF2454: JEFFREY A CONEN, Judge.
Before Donald, P.J., Dugan and White, 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 John Earl Mannery, pro se, appeals from his convictions for seven counts, entered upon a jury's verdicts in two cases joined for trial and consolidated on appeal. He also appeals from the orders denying his postconviction motions for relief. Mannery argues that the State's evidence was insufficient to support the jury's verdicts, that his trial counsel was ineffective for failing to impeach several of the State's witnesses that he was denied his constitutional right to be present or have counsel present during jury deliberations and when the court answered jury questions, and that cumulative errors prejudiced his defense. We reject all of his arguments and affirm.
¶2 Mannery's first case arises from human trafficking charges in May 2016. According to the criminal complaint in Milwaukee County Circuit Court case No. 2016CF1896 (hereinafter the Trafficking Case), Mannery was alleged to have engaged in trafficking a child, soliciting a child for prostitution, child enticement-intent to cause a child to engage in prostitution, human trafficking, and physical abuse of a child. All counts related to Alice, and all counts were alleged to have occurred between summer 2015 and February 2016.[1]
¶3 The complaint in the Trafficking Case alleged that from summer 2015 through February 2016, Alice stayed with Mannery at multiple hotels in Milwaukee County, including hotels on South 27th Street and Layton Avenue, on South 27th Street and Cold Spring Road, and on Appleton Avenue and Silver Spring Drive. Alice regularly engaged in prostitution acts arising out of the ads Mannery placed online and she gave him the monetary proceeds from those acts. Alice reported that Mannery told her he would kill her if she did not give him all of the money she made from prostitution. Mannery was physically abusive toward Alice on multiple occasions and he refused her access to food and money.
¶4 Mannery's second case arises from two counts of witness intimidation, in furtherance of a conspiracy, while he was in custody for the Trafficking Case in May 2016. According to the criminal complaint in Milwaukee County Circuit Court case No. 2016CF2454 (hereinafter the Intimidation Case), Mannery knowingly and maliciously attempted to dissuade Alice from appearing in court or cooperating in the prosecution of the Trafficking Case. In four jail phone calls made and recorded between May 8 and May 12, 2016, Mannery conspired with multiple other individuals to prevent Alice from appearing. The complaint and information of the two counts of felony intimidation of a witness in furtherance of a conspiracy were filed in June 2016.
¶5 The court joined the two cases in June 2016 upon the State's motion, which was heard without objection from Mannery's counsel. The joined cases proceeded to a jury trial on August 29, 30, and 31, 2016, and September 1 and 2 2016. The State's first witness was Milwaukee Police Department (MPD) Detective Lynda Stott, who works on the human trafficking task force and who provided information about common practices in human and child trafficking prostitution, and abuse in these systems. The State next called a manager from a hotel on North 60th Street and Fond du Lac Avenue in Milwaukee. He identified a registration card from his hotel that showed a copy of Mannery's driver's license; it was their practice to photocopy the driver's license of everyone who rented a room.
¶6 The State called Alice, who testified that when she was sixteen, she met Mannery at a gas station on North 35th Street and they exchanged phone numbers. She explained that the day after meeting Mannery, she texted him asking for a ride, which he provided. She and Mannery went to a hotel that another friend of Alice's had rented for her because she was homeless. Alice felt that Mannery had a
¶7 Alice testified that that first week, they spent several nights in a hotel, a night in the car, they had "a lot of great times," but they also argued. She thought Mannery was sweet and she was falling in love with him; however, they also argued over money and he became very upset when Alice called him a "bitch ass" in a joking manner. Mannery put his hands around her neck, told her not to call him that, and said it was disrespectful. She felt intimidated.
¶8 Alice testified that she did not want to get into the prostitution "lifestyle", which she defined as the "whole pimp and ho thing and the selling yourself for money[.]" Alice testified that Mannery taught her about prostitution and Backpage.com online ads;[2] he brought her closer and closer to prostitution, and controlled her with abuse. She did not want to use photographs of herself for Backpage ads, but instead, copied and pasted images from other ads. Mannery would check over the ads and offer his opinion about whether the images she picked looked like her. Alice stated that she used Mannery's phone to place ads on Backpage, or he would do it directly. She reviewed three print outs from Backpage ads that she had placed, all directing callers to Mannery's phone number. The ads were dated July 28, 2015, August 3, 2015, and September 17, 2015. The ads were admitted as exhibits and published to the jury.
¶9 Alice testified about a time when they were at a hotel on Appleton Avenue and Silver Spring Drive. Mannery beat her up, "busted her lip, and whacked her face[.]" She yelled for help, but no one helped her. She asked Mannery to take her to the hospital, but he refused. She subsequently sent photographs of her injuries [that Mannery caused] to her aunt and her mother.
¶10 Alice testified that during her acts of prostitution, she engaged in penis-to-vagina intercourse and oral sex. She recounted a time when she had exchanged messages with a potential customer (a "trick") and Mannery became upset and violent about the content and pricing discussed, and for the first time he said to her, "Now, if you don't give me your money, I'm going to beat your ass and I'm a pimp and you the ho[.]" She then stated that he Mannery told her that she better give him all of the money and kept hitting her. When the trick arrived, Alice asked to leave with him and said she felt unsafe; the trick dropped her at another hotel and paid for a room at that hotel, and she spent the night alone. However, later, she called Mannery from the hotel because she was worried he was out on the streets by himself.
¶11 Alice testified that when she first engaged in prostitution acts, she would hide the money, stating, "I never gave it to him unless-until he started threatening me and telling me I had to, that's when I end up leaving." When she did keep the money, she would spend it on food for them or gas for the car. She explained:
In the beginning it was different, I handed it to him the first time. Because I really didn't know-I never seen a pimp and a ho, never did any of that stuff. I never thought of myself as that, and I never looked at him as a pimp because he's not. No matter what, he's not. So what happened was just out of pure madness.
¶12 Alice testified that they did not have a stable place to live. She stated that they spent time at his father's house, which was "raggedy" and "nasty," on North 19th Street and Keefe Avenue in Milwaukee. She recalled an incident at that address in which Mannery was abusive to Alice, ripping her mouth open on the inside when she kept asking about another woman he was talking with and "messing around with." She needed stitches from that incident.
¶13 Alice stated that she loved Mannery and stayed faithful to him, but he did not think she was faithful because she engaged in prostitution acts. Some days she would not engage in prostitution, but then Mannery would be mad if she left or he would beat her and then withhold food from her. Alice reported that she left Mannery on several occasions and went to the houses of friends whom she believed would not turn her in to police because there was a runaway warrant out for her. Alice testified about Mannery meeting her family and them not approving. The DA questioned her about an incident:
¶14 Alice testified about an incident in which she and Mannery fought in a bathroom and her mouth was bashed in, chipping a tooth. A photo was admitted and shown to the jury. The State also showed Alice photographs taken by police in 2016, which she testified shows scars on her body caused by prior incidents and beatings by...
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