Court Opinion

ID: 9520573
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 01:44:04.600108+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:46:27.859744
License: Public Domain

DYKMAN, J.
¶ 34. (dissenting). Sentence credit concerns have been with us for some time. In 1974, the supreme court concluded that the Equal Protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibited a court from imposing a maximum sentence and denying sentence credit when a *752defendant is financially unable to post bail. Byrd v. State, 65 Wis. 2d 415, 424, 222 N.W.2d 696 (1974). In Klimas v. State, 75 Wis. 2d 244, 249, 249 N.W.2d 285 (1977), the court concluded that "the logical conclusion of the Byrd rationale require[d] that, as a matter of equal protection, there be credit required for all pretrial and pre-sentence confinement that results from the indigency of the defendant." The court invited the Wisconsin Legislature to consider federal law requiring sentence credit and noted that a similar legislative scheme had not been adopted in Wisconsin. Id. at 251-52.
¶ 35. The legislature apparently listened, because effective May 16, 1978, it enacted Wis. Stat. § 973.155. See 1977 Wis. Laws, ch. 353, § 9. This is the statute the majority construes today to prevent Johnson from receiving sentence credit when he could not post bail for fifty days in his 2005 case and when, perhaps, his attorney performed deficiently by failing to ask the circuit court to revoke his bail in the 2004 case. See Wis. Stat. § 973.155 (2005-06).1
¶ 36. As we see from Klimas, there is an equal protection underpinning to Wis. Stat. § 973.155. And we know, as Klimas states, that "a statute cannot deny what the constitution mandates." Klimas, 75 Wis. 2d at 249. We know that Johnson probably spent time in jail that he would not have spent but for his indigency. We also know that, as a matter of constitutional right, Johnson is entitled to effective assistance of counsel. See Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 684-86 (1984). If Johnson spent fifty days in custody because of his indigency and resulting inability to post bail, he has *753been denied a right guaranteed by the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. If his attorney was ineffective by failing to assist Johnson in taking the necessary steps to make his custody "in connection with" his 2004 case, he is entitled to relief in the form of sentence credit.2 These are issues requiring an evidentiary hearing to determine the necessary facts. I would reverse and remand for such a hearing. Because the majority does not do so, I respectfully dissent.

 All references to the Wisconsin Statutes are to the 2005-06 version unless otherwise noted.

 This is an issue Johnson has not raised but which arises once it becomes apparent that it is at least arguable that there was a way to avoid a sentence credit dispute.