Court Opinion

ID: 9677442
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:52:24.861145+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:55.987055
License: Public Domain

GARTZKE, P.J.
(dissenting). Johnson's convictions for both attempted homicide and aggravated battery pass the elements-only test for double jeopardy, but the question remains whether the legislature intends to permit multiple punishments. State v. Sauceda, 168 Wis. 2d 486, 495, 485 N.W.2d 1, 5 (1992). The elements-only test focuses exclusively on the statutes defining the offenses, without considering the facts of the defendant's activity. State v. Carrington, 134 Wis. 2d 260, 264, 397 N.W.2d 484, 486 (1986). Those facts are pertinent, however, to determining the legislature's intent. The Sauceda court examined the facts when determining whether the legislature intended that multiple punishments attend the sexual assaults with which the defendant was charged in that case. Sauceda, 168 Wis. 2d at 500, 485 N.W.2d at 7.
The facts are that Johnson engaged in a single course of conduct with a single purpose: to kill a single person, Vanessa Cooper. Cooper testified that she had just left the house and was standing on the sidewalk when Johnson came out holding a knife. He approached, grabbed her around the neck and asked her to come back into the house. She refused and pulled away from him. He was about to stab her in the stomach but she grabbed the blade, cutting her hand. She turned her back toward him, felt the knife go into her neck, and fell to the ground, apparently face down. He *58stabbed her several times until the knife broke and the blade stuck in her neck. She pulled it out while he continued to stab her with the remaining part of the knife. She pretended she was dead, and he then moved away from her. She got up, ran to a neighbor's house, and temporarily passed out. Johnson came to the door and asked, "Is the bitch dead yet?"
Aggravated battery is causing great bodily harm to another by an act done with intent to cause great bodily harm to that person without the person's consent. Section 940.19(2), Stats. First-degree intentional homicide is causing the death of another human being with intent to kill that person. Section 940.01(1), Stats. Because Johnson was unsuccessful in his effort to kill Cooper, he is guilty of an attempted homicide. His attempt to kill Cooper necessarily included the infliction of great bodily harm on Cooper during a single and uninterrupted course of conduct. Since death is the ultimate harm, a person cannot repeatedly stab another with intent to kill without at the same time causing great bodily harm to the other person. The person who, as a matter of fact, intends to kill another by repeated knife wounds also intends to cause great bodily harm. No other inference is possible.
We must assume that the legislature acts rationally. The question then is whether a rational legislature would intend that a defendant in Johnson's position be convicted of both attempted homicide and aggravated battery. The question practically answers itself. A rational legislature does not create statutes with the intent of permitting multiple convictions when the commission of one crime necessarily involves commission of another. A rational legislature will act with fundamental fairness and avoid prejudice to the defendant. Those are the reasons which underlie the *59prohibition against double jeopardy. State v. Eisch, 96 Wis. 2d 25, 34, 291 N.W.2d 800, 805 (1980). Fundamental fairness requires that a "defendant ought not be charged, tried, or convicted for offenses that are substantially alike when they are a part of the same general transaction or episode." Id. The Eisch court concluded that to convict a defendant for offenses that are substantially alike when they are part of the same general transaction or episode "would impose jeopardy of multiple trials or convictions for a single offense." Id. Given a rational legislative intent, the prohibition against double jeopardy is violated by convicting Johnson of both attempted homicide and aggravated battery.
The intentional homicide statute, sec. 940.01(1), Stats., and aggravated battery statute, sec. 940.19(2), Stats., do not protect distinct interests. "The homicide statutes protect life and bodily security." State v. Kuntz, 160 Wis. 2d 722, 757, 467 N.W.2d 531, 545 (1991). So does the aggravated battery statute, the causing of great bodily harm to another.
If I am wrong, and the legislature indeed intends to allow multiple convictions even when as a matter of fact commission of one crime necessarily includes commission of the other charged crime, the question is whether the trial court erroneously exercised its sentencing discretion. The court imposed the maximum and consecutive sentences for the multiple convictions. That the court can impose maximum but also consecutive sentences on multiple convictions is beyond dispute. State v. Paske, 163 Wis. 2d 52, 61-62, 471 N.W.2d 55, 58-59 (1991). It is also beyond dispute that the trial court had a choice to make: whether to impose concurrent or consecutive sentences on Johnson for his convictions.
*60When a trial court imposes a maximum or even a near-maximum sentence, the court must state its "reasons why a lengthy, near-maximum sentence was appropriate." McCleary v. State, 49 Wis. 2d 263, 282, 182 N.W.2d 512, 522 (1971) (emphasis added). In McCleary, the trial court sentenced the defendant to nine years for forgery, ten being the maximum. The trial court gave reasons for its sentence without attempting "to explain why the near-maximum sentence was appropriate in the circumstances." Id. at 270, 182 N.W.2d at 516. The McCleary court vacated the nine-year sentence and imposed a five-year sentence. Id. at 291, 182 N.W.2d at 526.
If the law requires a trial court to state why it imposes near-maximum or maximum sentences, surely the law requires the court to state why it imposes consecutive sentences on multiple convictions arising out of a single course of conduct. The reason for the requirement is even greater for multiple convictions than it is for giving a maximum sentence. A maximum sentence is imposed for a single crime. If, as in Johnson's case, consecutive sentences are imposed for a single course of conduct, the defendant is repeatedly punished for the same conduct. See 3 ABA Standards for Criminal Justice, Std. 18-4.5, at 296-98 (1980) (discussing protections "against the imposition of consecutive sentences based on the fragmentation of one criminal transaction into several legally distinct offenses.").
During the sentencing hearing, the trial court explained the many factors it took into account, including "the viciousness and the aggravated nature of the crimes." The court said that,
*61But for circumstances beyond your control, Vanessa Cooper would today be dead. I'm convinced that you thought she was dead or you would have continued attempting to kill her. This is an episode of viciousness and this is an episode that is aggravated beyond anything else that I've seen while sitting as a judge now for some nine years.
The court gave ample reasons for its ultimate conclusion that "long-term confinement is necessary to protect the public from further criminal activity" by Johnson. Its reasons explain its imposition of the maximum sentences but not why it imposed consecutive sentences.
The trial court had an opportunity to provide that explanation. Johnson moved for post-conviction relief on grounds that the imposition of consecutive rather than concurrent sentences was inappropriate. His counsel pointed out that the presentence report recommended that the maximum sentences be imposed but that they run concurrently. Counsel contended that even if under the elements-only test Johnson could be charged with both offenses, his actions were "indivisible." In response, the prosecutor contended that consecutive sentences may be imposed with no showing that separate acts had occurred.1
The trial court's response to Johnson's motion was to point out that the court had the authority to impose consecutive sentences and that the sentences imposed were not unduly harsh or unconscionable, the court repeated its earlier statements that but for the fact *62that Cooper played dead, "she would now in fact be dead. The defendant thought she was dead and that's when he desisted from stabbing her further or pounding her head on the concrete. This was the most vicious attack that the court has seen since going on the bench in 1980." The court added that the defendant had been a "leech" on the victim throughout the years and thought he could threaten and force her to live in servitude for the rest of her life. The court said that it had carefully considered its sentence because it had a recommendation for concurrent sentencing, and in the court's considered judgment, consecutive sentences were appropriate.
The question is not whether the sentences were unduly harsh or unconscionable. The question is whether the trial court provided an adequate reason why the sentences should be consecutive. Nowhere did the court address the fundamental problem before us: that defendant's attempt to kill Vanessa Cooper necessarily, under the facts, included his having intentionally inflicted great bodily injury upon her. Indeed, the court's repeated statement that Johnson continued his attack on Cooper until he thought she was dead points up that Johnson had engaged in a single course of conduct with a single purpose: to kill Cooper.
I conclude that the defendant's conviction for aggravated battery should be set aside on grounds that he has been subjected to double jeopardy. In any event, this court should set aside the sentences to the extent that they are consecutive, and sentence Johnson to concurrent terms. See McCleary, 49 Wis. 2d at 291, 182 N.W.2d at 526.

 The prosecutor implied that because Johnson could have stopped after he had unsuccessfully tried to stab Cooper in the stomach but merely slashed her hand and continued to stab and slash until he thought she was dead, separate acts were involved.