Title: State v. Jordan L. Gajewski

State: wisconsin

Issuer: Wisconsin Supreme Court

Document:

2009 WI 22 
 
SUPREME COURT OF WISCONSIN 
 
 
 
 
 
CASE NO.: 
2007AP1849-CR 
COMPLETE TITLE: 
 
 
State of Wisconsin, 
          Plaintiff-Respondent-Petitioner, 
     v. 
Jordan L. Gajewski, 
          Defendant-Appellant. 
 
 
 
 
REVIEW OF A DECISION OF THE COURT OF APPEALS 
___ Wis. 2d ___, 754 N.W.2d 255 
(Ct. App. 2008-Unpublished) 
 
 
OPINION FILED: 
March 3, 2009   
SUBMITTED ON BRIEFS: 
        
ORAL ARGUMENT: 
January 8, 2009   
 
 
SOURCE OF APPEAL: 
 
 
COURT: 
Circuit   
 
COUNTY: 
Marathon   
 
JUDGE: 
Patrick Brady   
 
 
 
JUSTICES: 
 
 
CONCURRED: 
        
 
DISSENTED: 
        
 
NOT PARTICIPATING:         
 
 
 
ATTORNEYS: 
 
For 
the 
plaintiff-respondent-petitioner 
the 
cause 
was 
argued by Christopher G. Wren, assistant attorney general, with 
whom on the briefs was J.B. Van Hollen, attorney general. 
 
For the defendant-appellant there was a brief by Steven L. 
Miller and Miller & Miller, River Falls, and oral argument by 
Steven L. Miller. 
 
 
 
 
2009 WI 22
NOTICE 
This opinion is subject to further 
editing and modification.  The final 
version will appear in the bound 
volume of the official reports.   
No.  2007AP1849-CR   
(L.C. No. 
2005CF491) 
STATE OF WISCONSIN  
 
 
   : 
IN SUPREME COURT 
 
 
State of Wisconsin, 
 
          Plaintiff-Respondent-Petitioner, 
 
     v. 
 
Jordan L. Gajewski, 
 
          Defendant-Appellant. 
 
 
 
FILED 
 
MAR 3, 2009 
 
David R. Schanker 
Clerk of Supreme Court 
 
 
 
 
 
REVIEW of a decision of the Court of Appeals.  Dismissed as 
improvidently granted.   
 
¶1 
PER CURIAM.   After examining the record and the 
briefs of the parties, and after hearing oral argument, we 
conclude that the petition for review was improvidently granted.   
¶2 
The defendant-appellant was convicted of one count of 
violating Wis. Stat. § 940.225(3), which establishes the Class G 
felony of third-degree sexual assault.  The case was tried to a 
jury on August 17-18, 2006, in Marathon County Circuit Court.  
The Honorable Dorothy Bain presided.   
No. 
  2007AP1849-CR 
 
2 
 
¶3 
On June 1, 2007, the defendant filed a post-conviction 
motion claiming he had been deprived of the effective assistance 
of trial counsel.  On July 13 Circuit Judge Patrick M. Brady, 
who had sentenced the defendant, conducted a Machner1 hearing and 
listened to testimony from trial counsel, the defendant, the 
alleged victim, and two others.  Judge Brady then denied the 
motion. 
¶4 
On May 6, 2008, in an unpublished opinion, State v. 
Gajewski, No. 2007AP1849-CR, unpublished slip op. (Wis. Ct. App. 
May 6, 2008), the court of appeals reversed. 
¶5 
We granted the State's petition for review, which 
contended that the court of appeals "failed to identify [the 
defendant]'s burden of proof for establishing his claim of 
ineffective assistance of counsel and failed to analyze [the 
defendant]'s postconviction proof according to that burden." 
¶6 
The State posed two additional issues: 
2. 
Whether, 
in 
reversing 
[the 
defendant]'s 
sexual-assault conviction, the court of appeals erred 
as a matter of law in applying Strickland's "objective 
standard of reasonableness"2 when, by ignoring clear 
evidence 
that 
[the 
defendant] 
withheld 
critical 
evidence from his lawyer, the court relieved [the 
defendant] 
of 
responsibility 
for 
withholding 
the 
evidence and thus functionally rejected Strickland's 
admonition that "[t]he reasonableness of counsel's 
actions may be determined or substantially influenced 
by the defendant's own statements or actions."3 
                                                 
1 State v. Machner, 92 Wis. 2d 797, 285 N.W.2d 905 (Ct. App. 
1979). 
2 Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 688 (1984). 
3 Id. at 691. 
No. 
  2007AP1849-CR 
 
3 
 
3. 
Whether, 
in 
reversing 
[the 
defendant]'s 
sexual-assault conviction, the court of appeals erred 
as a matter of law by failing to view the record in 
the light most favorable to the circuit court's 
decision 
rejecting 
[the 
defendant]'s 
ineffective-
assistance claim. 
¶7 
This case involves an alleged sexual assault during a 
teenage, coed sleepover party at a private home.  The defendant 
and the alleged victim were among five guests at the home, four 
of whom were sleeping in the same room.  The alleged victim 
claimed that the defendant had intercourse with her without 
consent.  She testified that she repeatedly told the defendant 
"No."  However, the other persons in the room were not awakened 
and did not learn of the alleged assault until later.  The 
alleged victim did not file a complaint against the defendant 
for more than a week, and she reportedly had contact with the 
defendant in the interim. 
¶8 
There is ample evidence to support the act of 
intercourse, but the characterization of that act turned on 
whether the jury believed the alleged victim's story.  By virtue 
of the verdict, it did. 
¶9 
The defendant's post-conviction motion claimed that 
trial counsel should have developed certain information provided 
by the defendant that would have secured one or more additional 
witnesses, enhanced counsel's cross-examination of the alleged 
victim, and formulated a clear motive to explain the alleged 
victim's somewhat belated accusation of sexual assault.   
¶10 At trial, this case turned on the credibility of the 
young woman who testified that she had been sexually assaulted.  
No. 
  2007AP1849-CR 
 
4 
 
A circuit judge who did not preside at that trial assessed the 
evidence presented at the Machner hearing.  The court of appeals 
assessed the Machner evidence differently.  The State asks us to 
jump into this morass in order to clarify and put a gloss on 
longstanding principles for evaluating the effectiveness of a 
defendant's counsel at trial.  See generally Strickland, 466 
U.S. 668.  After examining the evidence, we decline to do so. 
¶11 In the end, this review is more about error correction 
than law development and more about the significance of 
undisputed facts than about a need to clarify the law.  We 
conclude that the petition for review was improvidently granted, 
and we remand the cause to the circuit court in conformity with 
the decision of the court of appeals.   
¶12 By the Court.—The review of the decision of the court 
of appeals is dismissed as improvidently granted. 
 
 
No. 
  2007AP1849-CR 
 
 
 
1