Court Opinion

ID: 9671851
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:44:00.177265+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:12.641844
License: Public Domain

DAVID T. PROSSER, J.
¶ 57. (dissenting). Preventing the conviction of an innocent person is one of the central tenets of our criminal justice system. The United States Constitution and the Wisconsin Constitution provide a panoply of rights, including the right to remain silent, the right to counsel, the right to trial by an impartial jury, and the presumption of innocence, to assure fairness to defendants and minimize error in the adjudication of guilt.
¶ 58. After a defendant's trial and appeal rights have been exhausted, however, our system must become attentive to finality,1 and to the significant costs in time and money of never-ending challenges to the *144defendant's conviction.2 Public resources are limited. When resources are squandered in the rehashing of nonmeritorious claims, the risk of error and injury to future defendants increases accordingly.3
¶ 59. This case implicates the requirements that a defendant must satisfy after conviction before forcing a court to conduct a post-appeal evidentiary hearing. I dissent because the majority opinion significantly reduces the requirements necessary to engage the system in this manner.
FACTUAL BACKGROUND
¶ 60. On September 28,1999, at least two robbers ambushed former Milwaukee Bucks basketball star Glenn Robinson outside Junior's Sports Bar on North Green Bay Avenue in Milwaukee. After blocking Robinson's vehicle with their car, the men confronted Robinson and held him at gunpoint until they had stolen an estimated $40,000 in valuables, including a Rolex watch and bracelet, necklace, diamond earring, keys, cell phone, cash, and wallet. Robinson testified that he was deeply shaken by the incident because he was afraid that he was going to be gunned down in a tavern parking lot.
¶ 61. Two days after the robbery, police showed Robinson several photo arrays. He did not identify anyone. One week after the robbery, however, as he was looking through a number of additional photo arrays, *145Robinson identified a photograph of Lisimba Love. Robinson subsequently picked Love out of a lineup and identified him again at a preliminary examination and at trial.
¶ 62. Love turned out to be the same person whom Tawanda Knox said she saw, spoke to, and received an answer from at Junior's, moments before the robbery. Knox knew Love personally because she lived across the street from him, and she worked at a hair salon where Love went to get his hair cut. Love's sister-in-law owned the salon. Love also proved to be a habitual offender who was on parole at the time of the incident for homicide by negligent use of a motor vehicle.
¶ 63. Love lived at a North 37th Street address in Milwaukee with his mother, Dorothy, and other family members. The same address was used by Love's brothers Jeffrey, Litwain, and Khalif, all of whom had extensive criminal records. At Love's sentencing hearing, Assistant District Attorney Terry Magowan commented on Love's family, observing that two of his brothers were then in prison. Magowan said:
[T]here was a little bit of an outburst [at the time of the Love jury verdict] by one member of his family... Khalif Love, his younger brother... I myself have prosecuted Mr. Khalif Love twice for shooting cases.... [I]t's a family that kind of functions on fear and intimidation.
[G]etting back to Khalif Love, the cases against him, and I know two other prosecutors in the office who have had cases against him, they all get dismissed because witnesses don't show up. I remember one ... witness *146was a son of a cop and the cop called me and said I'm not letting my son testify against the Loves. (Emphasis added.)
¶ 64. Addressing Love's character at sentencing, Magowan emphasized the vehicular homicide. In November 1993 Love drove through a stop sign on North 37th Street at a very high rate of speed, striking a car and killing a woman in the car. He and his passenger fled the scene. Love later claimed that he did not know that he had hit a car or injured anyone, but Love's passenger told police that he had been instructed to lie about the nature of his injuries. Magowan asserted that Love had shown no remorse for his role in the homicide.
¶ 65. These facts from the record tell us a little more about the man who is demanding an evidentiary hearing on his largely unsupported claims. It must be remembered that Love no longer enjoys the presumption of innocence.
ANALYSIS
HH
¶ 66. There is evidence in the record that the defendant has asked people to lie for him in the past, and that he and his family function "on fear and intimidation." It should thus be no surprise that his motion to the court contains witness recantations. The majority opinion implies that a circuit court may not consider such factors in evaluating the strength of a defendant's post-conviction motion for an evidentiary hearing. I disagree.
¶ 67. In Nelson v. State, 54 Wis. 2d 489, 195 N.W.2d 629 (1972), the court set down a test for an evidentiary hearing to withdraw a guilty plea after *147judgment and sentencing. The court discussed federal cases and summarized the law to the effect that, where a motion is made after judgment and sentencing to correct a manifest injustice, "it is within the discretion of the trial court whether or not to grant a hearing on the motion." Id. at 496. After quoting from United States v. Tivis, 302 F. Supp. 581, 583 (N.D. Tex. 1969), id., the court said:
We here determine that if a motion to withdraw a guilty plea after judgment and sentence alleges facts which, if true, would entitle the defendant to relief, the court must hold an evidentiary hearing. However, if the defendant fails to allege sufficient facts in his motion to raise a question of fact, or presents only conclusionary allegations, or if the record conclusively demonstrates that the defendant is not entitled to relief, the trial court may in the exercise of its legal discretion deny the motion without a hearing. It is incumbent upon the trial court to form its independent judgment after a review of the record and pleadings.
Id. at 497-98 (emphasis added).
¶ 68. In State v. Bentley, 201 Wis. 2d 303, 548 N.W.2d 50 (1996), the court was asked to review a defendant's request to withdraw his guilty pleas based on the alleged ineffective assistance of his trial counsel. The court turned to Nelson and restated part of the above-quoted test. The court declared: "If the motion on its face alleges facts which would entitle the defendant to relief, the circuit court has no discretion and must hold an evidentiary hearing." 201 Wis. 2d at 310. "However, if the motion fails to allege sufficient facts, the circuit court has the discretion to deny a postcon-viction motion without a hearing based on any of the three factors enumerated in Nelson." Id. at 310-11.
*148¶ 69. In retrospect, the Bentley case has created problems for several reasons. First, both the court of appeals4 and this court severed an important part of the Nelson test, namely, "It is incumbent upon the trial court to form an independent judgment after a review of the record and pleadings. ..." See Nelson, 54 Wis. 2d at 498.
¶ 70. Second, because the court eliminated the circuit court's "independent judgment," it was able to say, "[wjhether a motion alleges facts which, if true, would entitle defendant to relief is a question of law that we review de novo." Bentley, 201 Wis. 2d at 310. The court seemed to be impressed with Bentley's argument that a de novo standard of review was appropriate "because the circuit court is in no better position than an appellate court to determine whether the motion was legally sufficient to require a hearing .... [T]he de novo standard... is entirely consistent with this court's prior cases which have applied a de novo standard of review when interpreting documents." Id. at 309 (summarizing Bentley's argument) (emphasis added). This formulation effectively blocks the circuit court from considering the credibility of a written claim or digging into the court record.
¶ 71. Third, the court in Bentley accepted the sufficiency of Bentley's assertions that his counsel's performance was deficient, but it rejected his claim that "he entered his guilty pleas only because he was informed" incorrectly by his attorney about parole eligibility. The court complained that Bentley "never explains how or why the difference between a minimum parole eligibility date of 11 years, 5 months and 13 *149years, 4 months would have affected his decision to plead guilty." Id. at 316-17.
¶ 72. On this third point, the Bentley decision is instinctively understandable. Upon reflection, however, it is not obvious why the court is able to say that Bentley's claim that he entered his guilty plea only because he was misinformed by his attorney, is not an allegation of fact which, if true, would entitle him to relief. In addition, Bentley does not explain how a circuit judge knows when "sufficient facts" have been pled so that the court "has no discretion and must hold an evidentiary hearing." See Bentley, 201 Wis. 2d at 310.
¶ 73. The manifest inconsistency in Bentley is that it adheres to the Nelson principle that a motion may be denied by a circuit court without a hearing "if the record conclusively demonstrates that the defendant is not entitled to relief' but does not explain how the court may scrutinize the record if it is supposed to make a judgment on the face of the motion. Moreover, Bentley strips the circuit court of any deference when the circuit court determines that an allegation is "con-clusory" and needs more facts, because the sufficiency of the motion is reviewed de novo. Too often, the natural response of frustrated circuit judges will be to schedule evidentiary hearings simply to avoid being second-guessed on appeal.
¶ 74. Last term in State v. Hampton, 2004 WI 107, 274 Wis. 2d 379, 683 N.W.2d 14, this court made a stab at clarifying the defendant's burden in a motion for a post-conviction hearing, saying: "Bentley-type allegations will often depend on facts outside the record. To ask the court to examine facts outside the record in an evidentiary hearing requires a particularized motion with sufficient supporting facts to warrant the undertaking." Id., ¶ 61. Then we added:
*150In Bangert5-type cases, the defendant has the initial burden of showing the basis for a hearing; but if he succeeds, the burden shifts to the state to show by clear and convincing evidence that the defendant's plea was knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently entered.
In Bentley-type cases, the defendant has the burden of making a prima facie case for an evidentiary hearing, and if he succeeds, he still has the burden of proving all the elements of the alleged error, such as deficient performance and prejudice. The defendant must prove the linkage between his plea and the purported defect. The defendant's proof must add up to manifest injustice.
Consequently, the requisite specificity required for establishing a prima facie case mirrors the defendant's ultimate burden of proof.
Id., ¶¶ 62-64 (internal citation omitted).
¶ 75. In a Bentley-type case, the defendant retains the burden of proof. Therefore, the defendant should be required to justify an evidentiary hearing by alleging what he expects to prove. He cannot stand on conclu-sory allegations, hoping to supplement them at the hearing, because the hearing is not intended as a fishing expedition. The defendant should plead a reasonably full statement of the facts in dispute so that both parties can prepare and litigate the real issues efficiently and the evidentiary hearing will serve as more than a discovery device.6
¶ 76. This brings us to the present proceeding. Love's first claim is that he was denied the effective *151assistance of counsel at trial and the effective assistance of counsel on appeal. Love alleges that Ann T. Bowe, his trial attorney, was "Incompetent/Ineffective as Counsel" in part because she "failed to investigate the facts that 'Jerees Veasley' actually knows who robbed Mr. Glen Robinson." Love alleges that his appellate counsel, Mark Rosen, was ineffective for failing to point out that Love's trial attorney was ineffective with respect to investigating Veasley.
¶ 77. The Veasley matter is grounded in a police report dated January 7, 2000, several days before Love's trial. The report was prepared by Detective Charles Hargrove who wrote in part:
On Friday, 1/7/2000, at approximately 10:53AM I, Det. HARGROVE was conducting follow-up on the above case. This follow-up consisted of interviewing alibi witnesses for [Lisimba] LOVE, B/M, DOB: 3/16/73, of 2818 N. 37th St.
At the above stated date and time I, Det. HAR-GROVE, did in fact, respond to 2818 N. 37th St. Upon my arrival at that location, I met with [Lisimba] LOVE'S mother, one Dorothy LOVE . .. who resides at that location ...
Also during the interview Mrs. LOVE stated that on 11/22/99, she received a telephone call, unknown time from a person who identified himself as Jerees VEASLEY, who was incarcerated at the County Jail. VEASLEY called and stated to Mrs. LOVE that "They got the wrong man on the ROBINSON case, I know who did it." Mrs. LOVE stated that she did mention this to [Lisimba's] attorney and that they know about Mr. VEASLEY.
*152¶ 78. This police report was available before trial. Love acknowledged that he had read the police reports. Consequently, he must have known about Jerees Veas-ley before trial and realized that Veasley did not testify at trial. Love's conviction was appealed. He also filed a post-conviction motion challenging the effectiveness of his trial counsel.
¶ 79. Against this background, Love's second ineffective assistance of counsel claim against Ann Bowe is barred by State v. Escalona-Naranjo, 185 Wis. 2d 168, 517 N.W.2d 157 (1994), which holds that any claim that could have been raised on direct appeal or in a previous Wis. Stat. § 974.06 post-conviction motion is barred from being raised in a subsequent § 974.06 post-conviction motion, absent a sufficient reason. No "sufficient reason" has ever been shown why this claim was not raised earlier, and in my view, it is clearly barred.
¶ 80. Setting aside Escalona, additional facts show why Love's ineffective assistance claim should not be accepted at face value — why resort to facts in the record demonstrates that the motion is insufficient.
¶ 81. On November 22, 1999, Jerees Veasley was allegedly incarcerated at the Milwaukee County Jail. Lisimba Love was also incarcerated at that time awaiting trial. Love and Veasley may have been incarcerated in the same facility, may have crossed paths, or may have known each other previously. We are left to speculate about the relationship because Love does not explain whether the two men know each other. Logically, there must have been some reason why Jerees Veasley called Love's mother at her home instead of some person in authority.
¶ 82. Love's trial attorney, Ann Bowe, was no stranger to Love. She had represented him in the vehicular homicide case in 1993. Early on, Bowe de*153cided to pursue an alibi defense in the Robinson case, and she notified the district attorney of that strategy, naming alibi witnesses including Love's mother. At trial, Bowe produced witness Mary Jones, who attributed the robbery to someone named "Dee."
¶ 83. The quoted police report indicates that Dorothy Love advised Love's attorney about Jerees Veasley and was told "that they know about Mr. Veasley."
¶ 84. Considering the defendant's alibi defense, it is hard to imagine that Attorney Bowe would not have contacted a man claiming to know the real perpetrator. It is even harder to imagine that Love's post-conviction attorney, Mark Rosen, who unsuccessfully accused Bowe of ineffective assistance of counsel on other grounds, would not have added the ground that Bowe never interviewed Jerees Veasley if Rosen thought for a minute that Bowe never interviewed Veasley.
¶ 85. Love's lengthy motion for post-conviction relief is supplemented with several affidavits, but there is no affidavit from Jerees Veasley saying he was not interviewed by Ann Bowe, and no affidavit from Ann Bowe acknowledging that she never interviewed Jerees Veasley. Indeed, although Love testified at trial that he had read all the police reports, there is no affidavit from him stating that he discussed Veasley with Bowe, asked her whether she was pursuing that lead, or inquired why Veasley did not testify at trial. Love provides nothing except a conclusory assertion that Bowe did not investigate this potential witness.
¶ 86. Love's assertion that Ann Bowe failed to seek out and interview Jerees Veasley is so improbable that Love ought to be required to do more than make a bald assertion that his attorney was derelict. After all, at the time he made the motion, Love was in Oklahoma and would have had to be brought back to Wisconsin. *154Wherever he is now, he will still have to be escorted to a Milwaukee courtroom at county expense to participate in the hearing. He will have to have an attorney, at state expense. Ann Bowe will have to be in court. Jerees Veasley will probably have to be in court. An assistant district attorney will have to prepare for the hearing and spend time in court. And the court itself will have to schedule and conduct the hearing and convene all necessary court personnel. Love will have the burden of going forward, producing evidence, and persuading the court at a hearing, and he should be required to tell the court what he expects to prove before he is given that hearing.
¶ 87. This court should insist on more detail before it affords an evidentiary hearing in response to Love's unsupported assertion that Ann Bowe did not investigate Veasley's story. It would not have been difficult for Love to obtain and submit more information. He could have written a "Dear Ann" letter, asking his former attorney to confirm that she never interviewed Veasley. Instead, he sent 26 letters asserting his innocence to everyone from the Commissioner of the National Basketball Association to the sports investigative person at the Gary Post-Tribune. He could have enlisted his mother to ask Veasley to submit a sworn affidavit revealing the alleged perpetrator of the robbery or simply asserting that he never spoke with Ann Bowe or anyone representing her. There is no indication that any of this was attempted. Thus, the majority's favorable ruling on Love's ineffective assistance of counsel claim seriously dilutes the sufficiency requirements of a post-conviction motion for an evidentiary hearing.
*155¶ 88. I agree with the majority's statement of the standard of review.7 Majority op., ¶ 26 (quoting State v. Allen, 2004 WI 106, ¶ 9, 274 Wis. 2d 568, 682 N.W.2d 433). The Allen court's subsequent reference to "the five 'w's' and the one 'h;' that is, who, what, where, when, why, and how," Allen, 274 Wis. 2d 568, ¶ 23, was intended to assist a defendant in alleging sufficient material facts to entitle the defendant to relief.
¶ 89. It must be acknowledged, however, that statements with the five "w's" and the one "h" may not be sufficient in themselves to justify a hearing, if they are presented as statements of ultimate fact in a conclusory manner without any supporting detail.
¶ 90. To illustrate the problem, consider again the Bentley case in which the defendant contended that he entered guilty pleas after his counsel erroneously gave *156him incorrect information on his eligibility for parole. His unsuccessful post-conviction motion stated in part:
4. Defendant will testify that he entered his guilty pleas only because he was informed by his trial attorney, Alan Olshan, that the parole eligibility date for first degree intentional homicide would be 11 years and 5 months.
6. Defendant's attorney, Alan Olshan, will testify that he told defendant he would try to get parole eligibility set under the "old law," which would result in parole eligibility of 11 years, 4 months.
7. The minimum parole eligibility, if a court does not set a parole eligibility date, is approximately 13 years and 4 months.... Neither the court nor the parole board can adjust a parole eligibility date below the minimum of approximately 13 years and 4 months....
8. Nothing in either the plea questionnaire or the plea colloquy disabused defendant of the misunderstanding of parole eligibility.
Bentley, 201 Wis. 2d at 315.
¶ 91. Summarizing these allegations, Attorney Olshan discussed a plea with Bentley before the plea hearing. He gave Bentley specific information about parole eligibility. Bentley claimed that Olshan told him a person convicted of first-degree intentional homicide is eligible for parole in 11 years, 5 months. If this statement were true, the information was incorrect by almost two years. Attorney Olshan admitted that he talked to Bentley but said he promised only to try to get parole eligibility in 11 years, 4 months under "old law." This, too, was incorrect because the court could not adjust parole eligibility downward from 13 years, 4 months. Bentley was misinformed by his attorney *157about parole eligibility, and this allegedly influenced his pleas because Bentley asserts that he entered guilty pleas only because of what he was told by his attorney.
¶ 92. Under today's majority opinion, Bentley probably met the who, what, where, when, why, and how test. Certainly, he asserted what he would testify to at a hearing and what Attorney Olshan would testify to. He claimed injury from relying on specific defective information. He alleged much more than Love alleged. Why would Bentley's motion fail under today's majority opinion?
¶ 93. The majority seems oblivious to two transcendent principles: First, "[t]he nature and specificity of the required supporting facts will necessarily differ from case to case." Bentley, 201 Wis. 2d at 314. Second, "conclusory allegations" are not sufficient. Allen, 274 Wis. 2d 568, ¶ 9.
¶ 94. If we focus on Veasley as the "who" in this case, we are told nothing about him. We are told nothing about how he got his information. We are told nothing about what he would say at an evidentiary hearing at which Love would have the burden of proof. Even Dorothy Love's statement about her conversation with Veasley is unsworn hearsay.
¶ 95. If we focus on Ann Bowe as the "who," there is nothing to support the conclusion that she did not investigate Veasley except the fact that Veasley was not called as a witness. Failure to call Veasley as a witness does not support an inference that Bowe never interviewed him or didn't have a good reason not to interview him. After all, Dorothy Love admits that when she mentioned Veasley to Love's attorney, she was told "they know about Mr. Veasley." The fact that Veasley was not called as a witness may be a sign that he lacked credibility, or that his testimony would have been in *158direct conflict with the testimony of Mary Jones, or that Attorney Bowe had some other strategic reason for not calling him. If Bowe already knew "about Mr. Veasley," she must have gained this information from her own investigation or because someone like Love or Veasley or the district attorney told her. The assertion that she never investigated Veasley is simply a conclusory allegation that Love has not supported with additional facts.
¶ 96. For the reasons stated, I conclude that the defendant failed to allege sufficient facts on his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel to be entitled to an evidentiary hearing as a matter of right. Without supporting facts, it is hard to believe that Ann Bowe did not investigate Veasley. In any event, without knowing what Veasley would say, there is little justification for a hearing. I further conclude that the circuit court did not erroneously exercise its discretion in denying Love's request for an evidentiary hearing.
HH HH HH
¶ 97. Love presents a second reason for the court to hold an evidentiary hearing — newly discovered evidence consisting of a sworn affidavit from Christopher Hawley, a fellow prisoner at a corrections facility in Oklahoma. Hawley swore that when he was an inmate at the Green Bay Correctional Institution, he was housed with a prisoner named Floyd Lindell Smith, Jr., who "disclosed to me [in depth] details concerning what and how he had done and committed this Offense [the Glenn Robinson robbery] and that it was just too Bad that the weight of the matter had fell upon Mr. Love in such a manner." Hawley added that he was willing to *159take a polygraph test, and he invited the district attorney's office to contact him for additional information.
¶ 98. In my view, this "new" evidence is not as easy to dismiss as the Jerees Veasley statement. Although Hawley does not give details of what Floyd Lindell Smith, Jr. said to him, he nonetheless swears that a named individual confessed to committing the crime of which the defendant was convicted. Undoubtedly, Haw-ley could testify at a trial against Smith on the basis of Smith's admissions.
¶ 99. Nonetheless, there are some troubling elements to the newly discovered evidence. First, the affidavit does not give details of the crime, including who else was involved, who was driving, whose car they were using, and what the robbers did with the valuables. Second, the affidavit does not exclude the participation of Lisimba Love in the robbery. Third, the affidavit misspells the name of Glenn Robinson as "Glen" Robinson, in exactly the same way that Love himself routinely misspells Robinson's name. Fourth, having discussed the matter with Love, Hawley could have obtained any "in depth details" he has of the robbery from Love himself.
¶ 100. The majority opinion fails to disclose that Floyd Lindell Smith, Jr. is the cousin of Lisimba Love. This fact is part of Love's own submission. The fact that Floyd Lindell Smith, Jr. was arrested on October 6, 1999, for carrying a concealed weapon is also part of the record. Significantly, Smith told authorities that he lived at 2818 North 37th Street, Milwaukee (which is Love's own address), when he was arrested a few days after the robbery. Put bluntly, Lisimba Love was not forthright in his motion to the court because he did not acknowledge that the two men were living in the same *160house at the time of the robbery, and neither the defendant nor the majority acknowledges the possibility that Floyd Lindell Smith, Jr. learned details of the robbery directly from Lisimba Love or the possibility that Smith committed the robbery with Love.
¶ 101. In my view, the circuit court should have followed up on the information in the Hawley affidavit, notwithstanding its hearsay quality. Why? In sentencing Love, Circuit Judge Bonnie Gordon broached the possibility that three people were involved in the Robinson robbery. In her interview with Milwaukee police, Mary Jones stated that "Dee" was present at Junior's Bar with three other men. Effrim Z. Moss, Love's co-defendant who was found not guilty of the robbery, was also a Love relative. The Robinson robbery could have been a "family" enterprise. Against this background, there is a real possibility that Floyd Lindell Smith, Jr. has actual knowledge of the robbery, whether or not he participated in it, and whether or not Love participated in it.
¶ 102. The circuit court could have issued an order to show cause to the district attorney's office, asking why an evidentiary hearing should not be held on Hawley's affidavit. This would have permitted the district attorney's office to conduct an investigation that included conversations with Hawley and Smith before a decision was made on a hearing.
¶ 103. The majority doesn't wait for such preliminaries. It orders an evidentiary hearing on the Hawley affidavit without coming to grips with what is likely to happen. How will Love meet his burden of proof at the hearing? What will happen if Smith asserts his right to remain silent? There needs to be preparatory effort before the court holds a hearing. Because the majority *161disagrees and seriously dilutes the sufficiency requirements for post-conviction evidentiary hearings, I respectfully dissent.
¶ 104. I am authorized to state that Justice JON E WILCOX joins this opinion.

 See State v. Allen, 2004 WI 106, ¶ 11, 274 Wis. 2d 568, 682 N.W.2d 433 (citing Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 309 (1989); State v. Lo, 2003 WI 107, ¶ 75, 264 Wis. 2d 1, 665 N.W.2d 756).

 See State v. Escalona-Naranjo, 185 Wis. 2d 168, 517 N.W.2d 157 (1994).

 See State v. Velez, 224 Wis. 2d 1, 12, 589 N.W.2d 9 (1999) ("we conserve scarce judicial resources by eliminating unnecessary evidentiary hearings").

 See State v. Bentley, 195 Wis. 2d 580, 587, 536 N.W.2d 202 (Ct. App. 1995).

 State v. Bangert, 131 Wis. 2d 246, 389 N.W.2d 12 (1986).

 Velez, 224 Wis. 2d at 12.

 Allen, 274 Wis. 2d 568, ¶ 9, states:
Whether a defendant's postconviction motion alleges sufficient facts to entitle the defendant to a hearing for the relief requested is a mixed standard of review. First, we determine whether the motion on its face alleges sufficient material facts that, if true, would entitle the defendant to relief. This is a question of law that we review de novo. [State v. Bentley, 201 Wis. 2d [303,] 309-10 [682 N.W.2d 433 (1996)]. If the motion raises such facts, the circuit court must hold an evidentiary hearing. Id. at 310; Nelson v. State, 54 Wis. 2d 489, 497, 195 N.W.2d 629 (1972). However, if the motion (1) does not raise facts sufficient to entitle the movant to relief, (2) or presents only conclusory allegations, or (3) if the record conclusively demonstrates that the defendant is not entitled to relief, the circuit court has the discretion to grant or deny a hearing. Bentley, 201 Wis. 2d at 310-11; Nelson, 54 Wis. 2d at 497-98. We require the circuit court "to form its independent judgment after a review of the record and pleadings and to support its decision by written opinion." Nelson, 54 Wis. 2d at 498. See Bentley, 201 Wis. 2d at 318-19 (quoting the same). We review a circuit court's discretionary decisions under the deferential erroneous exercise of discretion standard. In re the Commitment of Franklin, 2004 WI 38, ¶ 6, 270 Wis. 2d 271, 677 N.W.2d 276; Bentley, 201 Wis. 2d at 311.