Opinion ID: 1850556
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the legislative history and context of the statute

Text: In analyzing the legislative history and context of the statute, the majority's argument in support of multiple charges is that the language 120 or more consecutive days was a clear break from prior codifications. The majority asserts that the presence of such a break in statutory language means that even if the former statutes did not permit multiple charges, there is no reason to conclude that the present statute should be similarly interpreted. The critical issue in interpreting legislative history, however, is not the mere presence of such a break in statutory language but rather the connection between the break and the disputed portion of the statute. In this case, the legislative history offers persuasive evidence that the insertion of the phrase 120 or more consecutive days was in response to the lower court's decision in State v. Cissell, 127 Wis. 2d 205, 378 N.W.2d 691 (1985), declaring the former nonsupport statutes unconstitutional based on the court's conclusion that the elements of the two statutes were identical but provided different penalties. Contemporaneous with the appeal from Cissell, the legislature was recreating the abandonment and support statutes in separate sections. Thus, as this court acknowledged in its reversal of the court of appeals' affirmation of the lower court decision, the recent legislative changes would avoid some of the claimed defects in the [old] statute ...; namely, that [t]he new statute ... differentiates between sentence exposures on the basis of the length of time that a person fails to provide support. Cissel, 127 Wis. 2d at 215. Furthermore, according to the legislative drafting request, the new legislation removes the bar to criminal non-support actions caused by a Milwaukee circuit court finding that the present law is unconstitutional. This statement evidences that the change in the statute was made to provide a precise demarcation between the felony and the misdemeanor offense. No evidence exists, nor is any put forth in the majority analysis, to suggest that the change was made to provide for multiple felony counts. The drafting and creation of the new statute was motivated by a desire to distinguish between support and abandonment statutes; not to allow multiple counts of non-support in a single prosecution.