Opinion ID: 487448
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Elements of Mayhem Under Wisconsin Law

Text: 19 The only basis for granting federal habeas relief is a violation of federal statutory or constitutional law. Mosley v. Moran, 798 F.2d 182, 185 (7th Cir.1986). Federal courts hold no supervisory authority over state judicial proceedings and may intervene only to correct wrongs of constitutional dimension. Smith v. Phillips, 455 U.S. 209, 221, 102 S.Ct. 940, 948, 71 L.Ed.2d 78 (1982). The ultimate question before us, then, is not whether the mayhem instruction given at Cole's trial was erroneous as a matter of state law, but whether it deprived Cole of any federally-protected right. Cole maintains that the Constitution protects him from being convicted upon an instruction that fails to inform the jury of an essential element of the offense charged. This is, of course, a federal law question, but it is based on a particular understanding of Wisconsin law. Before reaching the merits of Cole's constitutional claim, therefore, we must determine whether his view of Wisconsin law is correct; that is, did Wisconsin law at the time of Cole's offense require that a mayhem conviction be supported by proof of great bodily harm?
20 On its face, the Wisconsin mayhem statute says nothing about great bodily harm. Section 940.21 of the Wisconsin Statutes provides that Whoever, with intent to disable or disfigure another, cuts or mutilates the tongue, eye, ear, nose, lip, limb or other bodily member of another, is guilty of a class B felony. Our inquiry is not confined to the language of the statute, however. Under Wisconsin law, an appellate court's construction of a statute becomes as much a part of the law as if the legislature had enacted it. Champlin v. State, 84 Wis.2d 621, 267 N.W.2d 295 (1978); State ex rel. Klinger & Schilling v. Baird, 56 Wis.2d 460, 202 N.W.2d 31 (1972). Moreover, an officially published opinion of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals has statewide precedential effect. Wis.Stats. Sec. 752.41(2). These rules are binding on us as well, for State courts are the ultimate expositors of their own states' laws and federal courts entertaining petitions for writs of habeas corpus are bound by the construction placed on a state's criminal statutes by the courts of that state except in extreme circumstances, none of which are present here. Mendiola v. Estelle, 635 F.2d 487, 489 (5th Cir.1981). 21 Cole's contention is that the great bodily harm element of mayhem derives from the Wisconsin Court of Appeals decision in Kirby v. State, 86 Wis.2d 292, 272 N.W.2d 113 (Ct.App.1978). To determine whether Cole is correct, we must examine the Kirby decision.
22 To place Kirby in context, it should first be noted that Kirby is only the second Wisconsin appellate opinion reported during the last century to consider the elements of the crime of mayhem. (The first was State v. Carli, 2 Wis.2d 429, 86 N.W.2d 434 (1957), cert. denied, 357 U.S. 907, 78 S.Ct. 1151, 2 L.Ed.2d 1157 (1958)). The reason for the paucity of case law, as the state explained at oral argument, is that mayhem has become something of an anachronism in Wisconsin's criminal law, largely superseded by more modern crimes. See, e.g., Wis.Stats. Sec. 940.19 (battery and aggravated battery); Wis.Stats. Sec. 940.23 (injury by conduct regardless of life); Wis.Stats. Sec. 940.24 (injury by negligent use of weapons); Wis.Stats. Sec. 941.30 (endangering safety by conduct regardless of life). Thus, prosecutors rarely charge offenders with mayhem anymore. Nevertheless, cases still arise, perhaps because mayhem, unlike its modern counterparts which carry lesser penalties, is a class B felony carrying a sentence of up to twenty years in prison. Wis.Stats. Sec. 939.50(3)(b). 2 23 In Kirby, the defendant was charged with mayhem for participating in an incident in which a woman was tied to a bed and tortured for a five-hour period. At trial, the evidence showed that the victim had been beaten with curtain rods, an electrical cord, and a belt. Her assailants had thrown lighted cigarettes and matches on her. Kirby's own acts included pouring salt and shaving lotion on her back and legs and attempting to shave her head after her hair was cut by others. 272 N.W.2d at 114. The victim suffered a fractured rib, burns, and scars on her legs in addition to psychological injuries requiring hospitalization. 24 At the close of the evidence, the trial court, finding this evidence insufficient to support a mayhem conviction, dismissed the charge. Instead, the trial court submitted to the jury charges of injury by conduct regardless of life under Wis.Stats. Sec. 940.23 (hereinafter injury) and endangering safety by conduct regardless of life under Wis.Stats. Sec. 941.30 (hereinafter endangering safety). The jury convicted the defendant only on the endangering safety charge. 25 On appeal, Kirby contended that the trial court had erred in submitting the injury and endangering safety charges to the jury because these charges were not lesser included offenses of mayhem. 3 In particular, Kirby maintained that injury required proof of great bodily harm and that such proof was not required for a mayhem conviction. The Wisconsin Court of Appeals disagreed. Relying on State v. Carli, supra, the court held that the cuts or mutilates element of mayhem necessarily includes the infliction of great bodily harm. The court reasoned as follows: 26 Although at common law mayhem required proof of mutilation or dismemberment that affected one's combat ability, the statutory enactments creating the crime have not required such extensive mutilation or disfigurement. Nonetheless, cuts or mutilates as used in the statute requires proof of an act of greater severity than a mere nick with a knife. We believe that cutting or mutilation, a statutory element of mayhem, requires an injury that constitutes great bodily harm as interpreted in LaBarge [v. State, 74 Wis.2d 327, 246 N.W.2d 794 (1976) ], and required as an element of injury by conduct regardless of life. 27 272 N.W.2d at 117 (footnotes omitted). Because an injury conviction did not require proof of any fact in addition to those required for a mayhem conviction, the court concluded that injury was properly submitted to the jury. Moreover, since endangering safety was a lesser included offense of injury, it followed that endangering safety was also properly submitted. Id. 28 The next question was whether the evidence could be reasonably viewed as support[ing] conviction of the lesser offense while leaving reasonable doubt as to the accused's guilt of the charged offense. Id. Reviewing the evidence, the court concluded that the jury could reasonably have determined that the state had not carried its burden on the mayhem and injury charges, but that it had carried its burden on the endangering safety charge. Accordingly, the court concluded that the submission of the lesser included offenses was proper and it affirmed the conviction. 272 N.W.2d at 117-18. 29
30 The Attorney General argues that the Kirby court's discussion of the elements of mayhem was dicta. If the Attorney General is correct, then we are not bound by this aspect of the Kirby decision, for Wisconsin follows the common law rule that dicta--statements of law going beyond the particular facts of the case--do not constitute binding precedent. See Beloit Corp. v. Department of Industry, Labor and Human Relations, 63 Wis.2d 23, 216 N.W.2d 233, 238 (1974); 1 Callaghan's Wisconsin Pleading & Practice Sec. 2.95 (1978). In the Attorney General's view, the Kirby court's finding that mayhem required proof of great bodily harm was unnecessary because Kirby was acquitted of injury, which was the only charge submitted to the jury that contained an element of great bodily harm. 31 Apparently, the Attorney General believes that the result of Kirby would not have changed even if Kirby had prevailed in his argument that the injury charge was erroneously submitted. However, every indication in the opinion and the law of Wisconsin at the time of the opinion is to the contrary. Had Kirby prevailed, his conviction for endangering safety would have had to be reversed. 32 Wisconsin law recognizes that the erroneous submission of a criminal charge can create an unacceptable risk of a compromise verdict. Even if one is acquitted of the erroneous charge, the error may result in a wrongful conviction on another charge. See, e.g., State v. Williford, 103 Wis.2d 98, 307 N.W.2d 277 (1981); Ross v. State, 61 Wis.2d 160, 211 N.W.2d 827 (1973). In Kirby, it was essential that the submission of the injury charge be found proper, for if it was not the endangering safety conviction could have represented a compromise. Faced with a choice between acquittal and conviction on the endangering safety charge alone, the jury might have chosen an acquittal. 4 To determine whether injury was properly submitted, the court therefore had to decide whether a mayhem conviction required proof of great bodily harm. 33 Wisconsin law also seeks to minimize the risk of erroneous convictions through its rule that a lesser included offense can only be submitted if a reasonable view of the evidence supports both an acquittal on the charged offense and a conviction on the lesser offense. 5 In the somewhat unusual posture of the Kirby case, this meant that the court, in order to uphold the conviction, had to find that each of four potential outcomes were supported by a reasonable view of the evidence: (1) an acquittal for mayhem, (2) a conviction for endangering safety, (3) an acquittal for injury, and (4) a conviction for injury. (Because injury was both a lesser included offense of mayhem and a greater offense of endangering safety, the court had to find that either outcome, as to injury, would have been reasonable). For our purposes, the essential point is that the court, in reviewing Kirby's endangering safety conviction, had to decide whether Kirby's acquittal for mayhem was supported by a reasonable view of the evidence. This decision, in turn, required the court to consider the evidence in relation to the elements of mayhem, including great bodily harm. The court concluded, somewhat reluctantly but without equivocation, that the evidence could be reasonably viewed as failing to establish the elements of mayhem. 272 N.W.2d at 117. 34 To summarize, the Kirby court's determination that great bodily harm is an essential element of mayhem was necessary to its analysis at two points. First, it was necessary to the finding that injury was a lesser included offense of mayhem and that it was, therefore, properly submitted to the jury. Second, it was necessary to the finding that Kirby's acquittal for mayhem was supported by a reasonable view of the evidence. Each of these findings, in turn, formed an essential part of the court's ultimate holding affirming Kirby's conviction for endangering safety. 35 In short, Kirby 's holding that a mayhem conviction requires proof of great bodily harm was necessary to its decision and has full precedential effect under Wisconsin law. Accordingly, it is binding on us as well, for the Wisconsin courts, not we, are the ultimate expositors of Wisconsin law. 36
37 The Attorney General also maintains that the Kirby court misconstrued the Wisconsin Supreme Court's decision in State v. Carli, supra. According to the Attorney General, Carli found that mayhem contained an element of great bodily harm on the facts of that case. Since Carli, however, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has rejected the facts presented test in favor of a legal elements only test for determining lesser included offenses. Randolph v. State, 83 Wis.2d 630, 266 N.W.2d 334 (1978). Thus, the Attorney General concludes that Kirby was wrongly decided. 38 This argument need not detain us long. It is not our place to determine whether Kirby was correctly decided. Our sole task is to ascertain the applicable Wisconsin law, and Kirby was the law in effect at the time of Cole's offense. We note, however, that the Kirby court expressly disclaimed any reliance on the facts presented test, stating that it was mindful of the admonition of the Wisconsin Supreme Court that we are only to be concerned with 'the legal elements of the crimes, and not with the particular facts established in the case at hand.'  Kirby, 272 N.W.2d at 117. Moreover, the court did not rely solely on Carli, but independently reached the conclusion that proof of great bodily harm was required. 6 39
40 Our reading of Kirby finds support in the Wisconsin Criminal Jury Instructions Committee's 1982 decision to include great bodily harm as an element of mayhem. See supra n. 1 and accompanying text. In a footnote to the revised No. 1230, the Committee made clear that the change was necessitated by Kirby. Id. Why it took the Instructions Committee four years to catch up with Kirby is not evident; perhaps the sparsity of mayhem cases was a contributing factor. In any event, the date of the revision is not important. What counts is that the legal development that spurred the revision took place more than two years prior to Cole's offense, in October 1978 when Kirby was decided. 41 Though the Committee's determinations do not carry independent force of law, the Wisconsin courts have often found them to be persuasive evidence of what the law is. See, e.g., State v. Saternus, 127 Wis.2d 460, 381 N.W.2d 290 (1986). As the Wisconsin Supreme Court has stated, the pattern instructions are the product of painstaking effort of an eminently qualified committee of trial judges, lawyers, and legal scholars, designed to accurately state the law and afford a means of uniformity of instructions throughout the state. State v. Kanzelberger, 28 Wis.2d 652, 137 N.W.2d 419, 422-23 (1965). Indeed, in this very case, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals appeared to rely on the giving of the then-current pattern instruction as a ground for affirming Cole's conviction. See State v. Cole, slip op. at 3-4. We conclude that a Wisconsin court would give weight to the Committee's determinations, and therefore so do we.