State v. Sease
| Decision Date | 15 February 2023 |
| Docket Number | 2021AP1477-CR |
| Parties | State of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent, v. Daniel D. Sease, 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This opinion will not be published.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 Fond du Lac County No. 2015CF218: PETER L. GRIMM, Judge.
Before Gundrum, P.J., Neubauer and Grogan, 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 Daniel D. Sease appeals from a judgment of conviction for two counts of strangulation and a single count of misdemeanor battery, all as a habitual criminal pursuant to WIS. STAT § 939.62(1) (2011-12).[1]He also appeals from an order denying postconviction relief. Sease argues the additional strangulation count was added as retribution for his obtaining plea withdrawal in an earlier case that was based on the same course of criminal conduct. He also argues the State failed to prove the applicability of the habitual criminality penalty enhancer at sentencing. We conclude the State has rebutted any presumption of vindictive prosecution. We also conclude Sease's admission on his trial date that he was a habitual criminal relieved the State of its obligation to prove that status at sentencing. Accordingly we affirm.
¶2 Sease was charged in Fond du Lac County Circuit Court case No. 2011CF415 with second-degree sexual assault, aggravated battery, and strangulation, all as a habitual criminal. Sease entered into a plea agreement with the State and pled guilty to the strangulation and battery offenses with the habitual criminality penalty enhancers. In 2014, the circuit court granted Sease's motion for plea withdrawal, finding the plea was predicated on Sease's attorney's promise to support a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel if Sease should later wish to withdraw his pleas. In 2015 the State sought to dismiss case No. 2011CF415 without prejudice electing instead to file a superseding Complaint based on the same course of criminal conduct. The court granted the motion.
¶3 The new Criminal Complaint, filed in connection with the present Fond du Lac County Circuit Court case number, reduced the severity of the battery charge to a misdemeanor offense added two kidnapping counts, and split the strangulation charge into two separate counts. The factual allegations were the same as in the prior case: that on October 30, 2011 Sease, while heavily intoxicated, interrogated his then-girlfriend Jennifer[2] about his belief that she had been talking to another man. He met Jennifer at her residence in Menasha and transported her to his residence in Fond du Lac, slapping her and pulling her hair on the way. In Fond du Lac, Sease threatened to kill her, beat her with his fists and with a bottle, and repeatedly strangled her until she began to gag. Later, at a motel, Sease beat Jennifer again, at one point striking her so hard that she wondered if he had knocked her eye out of its socket. In the motel bathroom, Sease made Jennifer watch him strangle her in the mirror, where Jennifer saw that her own lips were turning purple. Jennifer further alleged that after Sease released her, he got on top of her and had sexual intercourse with her. Jennifer told police she did not consent to the intercourse, but was too afraid to tell Sease to stop.
¶4 Following a trial, a jury found Sease guilty of the two strangulation offenses and the battery. He was acquitted of sexual assault and the two kidnapping offenses. Sease was given the maximum sentences: two years on the misdemeanor battery conviction, bifurcated as eighteen months' initial confinement and six months' extended supervision; and ten years on each strangulation conviction, bifurcated as seven years' initial confinement and three years' extended supervision. The sentences were ordered to run consecutively.
¶5 Sease then filed a postconviction motion asserting that his due process rights had been violated because the new charges were the result of vindictive prosecution. He additionally argued he received constitutionally ineffective assistance from his trial counsel as a result of his attorney's failure to challenge the vindictive prosecution. Finally, Sease argued the habitual criminality penalty enhancers were unlawfully applied to his convictions because his admission on the first day of trial to a prior qualifying felony was insufficient and because the State failed to otherwise prove the fact of his prior conviction at sentencing. The circuit court rejected these arguments following a nonevidentiary hearing. Sease now appeals.
¶6 Sease first argues that the new strangulation charge in this case was animated by a vindictive motive against Sease for exercising his right to withdraw his plea in case No. 2011CF415.[3] The legal principles surrounding a claim of prosecutorial vindictiveness present questions of law that we review de novo. State v. Cameron, 2012 WI.App. 93, ¶11, 344 Wis.2d 101, 820 N.W.2d 433. However, we review the circuit court's findings of fact regarding whether the defendant has established actual vindictiveness under the clearly erroneous standard. Id. ¶7 "To establish a claim of prosecutorial vindictiveness, a defendant must show either a 'realistic likelihood of vindictiveness,' therefore raising a rebuttable presumption of vindictiveness, or actual vindictiveness." State v. Williams, 2004 WI.App. 56, ¶43, 270 Wis.2d 761, 677 N.W.2d 691 (quoting State v. Johnson, 2000 WI 12, 17, 232 Wis.2d 679, 605 N.W.2d 846). Actual vindictiveness requires the presentation of objective evidence that the prosecutor acted to punish the defendant for standing on his or her legal rights. Id.
¶8 The State argues Sease has forfeited his prosecutorial vindictiveness claim by failing to raise it prior to trial. Sease responds that he has not forfeited his claim, and in any event, his brief posits ineffective assistance of counsel or plain error as alternative means of reaching the validity of the State's charging decision. Even assuming Sease's claim was properly preserved, however, we conclude that Sease has failed to demonstrate prosecutorial vindictiveness. This conclusion necessarily constitutes a rejection of Sease's plain error and ineffective-assistance-of-counsel arguments. See State v. Sanders, 2018 WI 51, ¶29, 381 Wis.2d 522, 912 N.W.2d 16 ().
¶9 First, Sease contends he has established prosecutorial vindictiveness under Blackledge v. Perry, 417 U.S. 21 (1974). Blackledge recognized that a convicted person "is entitled to pursue his statutory right to a trial de novo, without apprehension that the State will retaliate by substituting a more serious charge for the original one, thus subjecting him to a significantly increased potential period of incarceration." Id. at 28. Accordingly, when a prosecutor elects to pursue additional or increased charges following a defendant's pursuit of postconviction relief, and those additional or increased charges arose out of the same criminal course of conduct that was the subject of the original charge, we indulge a rebuttable presumption that the additional or increased charges were retribution for the defendant's exercise of his or her rights. See Williams, 270 Wis.2d 761, ¶45.
¶10 The presumption is rebuttable because the successful invocation of postconviction or appellate rights usually returns the case to a pretrial posture, thereby permitting the defendant and the State to once again engage in the give-and-take of plea negotiations. When we review a claim of vindictive prosecution, we "must be mindful that a prosecutor has great discretion in charging decisions and generally answers to the public, not the courts, for those decisions." Cameron, 344 Wis.2d 101, ¶12. A prosecutor's initial charging decision may not reflect the extent to which an individual is legitimately subject to prosecution, and the prosecutor must remain free to exercise broad discretion in determining which charges properly reflect society's interests. Id., ¶13.
¶11 Assuming without deciding that Sease has established a presumption of vindictiveness here, the difficulty with Sease's position is that he fails to make any allowance for the State's opportunity to rebut that presumption by showing the additional or increased charges were brought about by legitimate considerations and not animus or revenge. Rather, the logical endpoint of his argument is that once the State negotiated the original plea agreement, it was forever bound to the charges that formed the basis for that agreement, even if his pleas were later deemed invalid.
¶12 We reject Sease's argument and conclude that the evidence presented by the State in connection with Sease's postconviction motion effectively rebutted any presumption that the new charges were retribution for Sease's exercise of his postconviction rights. The prosecutor's affidavit explained that prior to plea withdrawal, the original prosecutor left the district attorney's office. New prosecutors had been assigned to the case and had reviewed the case file in No. 2011CF415. They believed the habitual criminality penalty enhancers had been incorrectly charged, but could not be corrected because a plea had been taken.[4] Additionally, one of the prosecutors strongly disagreed with the way the case had been initially charged. And, after receiving additional medical evidence, the prosecutors decided that they could not prove the aggravated battery charge.
¶13 After Sease successfully sought plea withdrawal, the...
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