Court Opinion

ID: 9584918
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:53:58.264134+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:07:29.296160
License: Public Domain

LUNDSTEN, J.
¶ 50. (dissenting). Although I agree with much of the majority decision, I respectfully dissent because I disagree with its analysis of prejudice under Strickland.1 Before proceeding to my point of disagreement, I will comment on some particular aspects of the majority decision with which I agree.
¶ 51. The majority correctly decides that it was deficient performance for Veach's trial counsel to fail to propose a "Wallerman stipulation."2 The majority is also correct in its conclusion that the trial court would have been required to accept a Wallerman stipulation if one had been offered. Both of these conclusions are dictated by this court's prior decision in State v. DeKeyser, 221 Wis. 2d 435, 585 N.W.2d 668 (Ct. App. 1998). Regarding these issues, I see no principled way of distinguishing this case from DeKeyser.
¶ 52. I also agree with the majority's holding that DeKeyser is in conflict with the supreme court's subsequent decision in State v. Davidson, 2000 WI 91, 236 Wis. 2d 537, 613 N.W.2d 606, with respect to its analysis of relevance. See Majority at ¶ 27. In DeKeyser, this court held that evidence of prior sexual assaults could not be used to show the absence of mistake or accident because the defendant had not affirmatively raised the defense of mistake or accident. DeKeyser, 221 Wis. 2d at 447. This holding is in conflict with Davidson for the reasons set forth by the majority. In addition, the holding in DeKeyser is flawed because it fails to *428acknowledge that the facts of a case may themselves suggest that mistake or accident is an issue, regardless what a defendant affirmatively asserts or argues.
¶ 53. Despite these points of agreement and others, I must dissent because I do not believe that DeKeyser compels a finding of prejudice in this case under the second prong of Strickland. And, I do not believe that the Strickland standard of prejudice has been met.
¶ 54. The DeKeyser court's finding of prejudice rests on three grounds. The first is inapplicable here and the remaining two are in conflict with Davidson.
¶ 55. First, the DeKeyser court reasoned that the normal assumption that a limiting instruction is sufficient to cure possible unfair prejudice attending the admission of other acts evidence did not apply to the case before it because the jury had been instructed to consider the other acts evidence as proof of "preparation or plan, and thus the doing of the act." DeKeyser, 221 Wis. 2d at 452. Regardless of the ongoing validity of the limited view of preparation and plan set forth in DeKeyser,3 the jury in this case was not instructed on preparation or plan.4
¶ 56. Second, the DeKeyser court found that it was error to instruct the jury that it could use the other *429acts evidence to show lack of mistake or accident when the defendant never alleged mistake or accident. Id. at 452-53. However, as demonstrated in the majority opinion in this case, that conclusion is in conflict with our supreme court's Davidson decision.
¶ 57. Third, the DeKeyser court observed that "all those involved in the trial recognized the potential use of this evidence as corroboration of the victim's allegation" and that the trial court admitted the evidence in part to "bolster" the State's case. DeKeyser, 221 Wis. 2d at 453. Later, the DeKeyser court said that the trial court had wrongly considered the other acts evidence "as corroboration of the victim's testimony." Id. at 454. The DeKeyser court's conclusion seems to be that the trial court used the corroborative value of the other acts evidence as an impermissible consideration when determining admissibility. This conclusion conflicts with Davidson, in which the supreme court repeatedly noted that the "need to corroborate the victim's testimony against credibility challenges" is one of the justifications for admission of this type of evidence in sexual assault cases. Davidson, 2000 WI 91 at ¶ 40; see also id. at ¶¶ 38, 66. Accordingly, the DeKeyser trial court's consideration of the corroborative value of the evidence was not a proper basis for finding prejudice under Strickland.
¶ 58. I acknowledge that the need-to-corroborate-the-victim justification for the greater latitude rule has been the subject of much dispute. See, e.g., Davidson, 2000 WI 91 at ¶¶ 107-10 (Bradley, J., dissenting). This dispute, however, is beside the point because this court is not generally at liberty to reject pronouncements of our state supreme court, and we are not at liberty to do so here.
*430¶ 59. Having determined that one part of the DeKeyser prejudice analysis is absent in this case and that the remaining two are in conflict with Davidson, I now engage in my own analysis of prejudice under Strickland. The often-stated standard is this:
Prejudice occurs when counsel's deficient performance was "so serious as to deprive the defendant of a fair trial, a trial whose result is reliable." To demonstrate prejudice, a defendant must show a reasonable probability that, but for counsel's deficient performance, the result of the trial would have been different. A reasonable probability is one sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome of the trial. The ultimate focus of our inquiry must be on the fundamental fairness of the proceeding whose result is being challenged.
DeKeyser, 221 Wis. 2d at 455-56 (Cane, C.J., dissenting) (citations omitted; emphasis added). A defendant does not demonstrate prejudice simply by showing that there is a "reasonable probability" of a different result if his or her counsel had not performed deficiently. Such an analysis, "focusing solely on mere outcome determination, without attention to whether the result of the proceeding was fundamentally unfair or unreliable, is defective." Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U.S. 364, 369 (1993). Thus, the bottom-line prejudice inquiry addresses whether the proceeding was fundamentally fair, despite deficient performance.
¶ 60. I agree with the majority's observation that prejudice under the second prong of Strickland is a different concept than prejudice in the context of analyzing the admissibility of other acts evidence. See Majority at n.10. Still, I conclude that admission of the other acts evidence during Veach's trial did not prejudice Veach within the meaning of Strickland, *431because admission did not render his trial fundamentally unfair.
¶61. The trial in this case was unremarkable when compared with numerous published child sexual assault cases. Wisconsin has long followed the greater latitude rule which has led to the admission of evidence of prior sexual assaults carrying a significant danger of unfair prejudice. This court and the state supreme court have repeatedly affirmed convictions in these cases relying on both the need for such evidence and on faith that jurors would conscientiously follow limiting instructions. E.g., State v. Plymesser, 172 Wis. 2d 583, 493 N.W.2d 367 (1992) (in sexual assault case, other acts evidence showing the defendant had oral sex with a seven-year-old child); State v. Friedrich, 135 Wis. 2d 1, 398 N.W.2d 763 (1987) (in sexual assault case, other acts evidence showing the defendant previously assaulted two other young girls); State v. Parr, 182 Wis. 2d 349, 513 N.W.2d 647 (Ct. App. 1994) (in sexual assault case, other acts evidence showing the defendant previously assaulted three young boys); cf. State v. Bustamante, 201 Wis. 2d 562, 567-68, 549 N.W.2d 746 (Ct. App. 1996) (in shaken baby homicide case, other acts evidence that the defendant injured a different child by inflicting a skull fracture). The question in these prior cases was whether the trial court could properly have admitted the other acts evidence. Upon finding that the evidence was properly admitted, this court and the supreme court affirmed the convictions because the trials were fairly conducted according to our rules of evidence and within the bounds of constitutional constraints.
¶ 62. Likewise, in this case the majority has found that the trial court could have properly admitted the other acts evidence. Prior to Wallerman and *432DeKeyser, that finding would have been the end of the matter and we would have affirmed Veach's convictions. However, the majority holds, in effect, that Veach's trial was fundamentally unfair because admissible other acts evidence was presented to the jury.
¶ 63. I will not take issue here with Wallerman and DeKeyser because this court is bound by those decisions, but the advent of this new law recognizing the propriety of Wallerman stipulations does not mean that prior cases tried in compliance with the "greater latitude" rule and other principles governing the admission of other acts evidence were, in retrospect, fundamentally unfair. It follows that the trial here was not fundamentally unfair just because a Wallerman stipulation could have provided an alternative means of satisfying the State's burden of proof.
¶ 64. Therefore, I would affirm Veach's convictions.

 Strickland, v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 687 (1984).

 State v. Wallerman, 203 Wis. 2d 158, 552 N.W.2d 128 (Ct. App. 1996).

Cf. State v. Davidson, 2000 WI 91, ¶¶ 60-62, ¶66, 236 Wis. 2d 537, 613 N.W.2d 606; State v. Gray, 225 Wis. 2d 39, 53, 590 N.W.2d 918 (1999).

 I also agree with Chief Judge Cane's criticism of this analysis. In his dissent in DeKeyser, Judge Cane observes that the majority's "suggestion that the jury may have improperly used this other acts evidence is contrary to the long-established principle that we must presume the jury will follow the court's instructions." State v. DeKeyser, 221 Wis. 2d 435, 457, 585 N.W.2d 668 (Ct. App. 1998) (Cane, C.J., dissenting).