Court Opinion

ID: 9687054
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 16:15:05.424793+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:23.970217
License: Public Domain

DYKMAN, J.
(dissenting). The majority relies upon a trilogy of cases, State v. Tappa, 127 Wis. 2d 155, 378 N.W.2d 883 (1985), State v. Genova, 77 Wis. 2d 141, 252 N.W.2d 380 (1977), and Jackson v. State, 92 Wis. 2d 1, 284 N.W.2d 685 (Ct. App. 1979), as authority for its conclusion that Seymour was denied certain rights. But Schad v. Arizona, 501 U.S. —, 115 L. Ed. 2d 555 (1991),1 requires that a different analysis be used when analyzing a contention that the right to jury unanimity was violated because a statute and corresponding jury instructions define a crime as being committed in several, conceptually different ways.
*324Schad identifies this issue as one governed by the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution. 115 L. Ed. 2d at 564-66.
In Jackson, we accepted the rationale of United States v. Gipson, 553 F.2d 453 (5th Cir. 1977), as to jury-unanimity cases. But Schad does not accept Gipson's approach.
It is tempting, of course, to follow the example of Gipson to the extent of searching for some single criterion that will serve to answer the question facing us. We are convinced, however, of the impracticability of trying to derive any single test for the level of definitional and verdict specificity permitted by the Constitution, and we think that instead of such a test our sense of appropriate specificity is a distillate of the concept of due process with its demands for fundamental fairness....
Schad, 115 L. Ed. 2d at 569.
Both the plurality and the concurrence in Schad identify generic or freakish groupings of acts which would arguably offend the due process clause if a jury were not required to agree on the method by which a defendant violated the statute. A crime which permitted any combination of jury findings of embezzlement, reckless driving, murder, burglary, tax evasion or littering, Schad, 115 L. Ed. 2d at 566, or robbery or failure to file a tax return, Schad, 115 L. Ed. 2d at 577 (Scalia, J., concurring), are examples of legislative extremes which might not survive a due process challenge. Section 940.225(1), Stats. (1985-86), could have been open to such a challenge, if jury unanimity was not required by instruction or verdict. That statute, now repealed, defined first-degree sexual assault as, among other things, sexual contact with a person twelve years of age or younger, or as nonconsensual *325sexual contact by the use, or threat of use, of a dangerous weapon.
The new test developed by Schad is highly deferential. "The enquiry is undertaken with a threshold presumption of legislative competence to determine the appropriate relationship between means and ends in defining the elements of a crime." Schad, 115 L. Ed. 2d at 569. "Respect for this legislative competence counsels restraint against judicial second-guessing ... ." Id. The Court, recognizing that it is impossible to define a single test for determining when two means are so disparate as to exemplify two inherently separate offenses, defined the new inquiry as follows:
Where a State's particular way of defining a crime has a long history, or is in widespread use, it is unlikely that a defendant will be able to demonstrate that the State has shifted the burden of proof as to what is an inherent element of the offense, or has defined as a single crime multiple offenses that are inherently separate. Conversely, a freakish definition of the elements of a crime that finds no analogue in history or in the criminal law of other jurisdictions will lighten the defendant's burden.
Id. at 570-71 (footnote omitted).
Using Schad's historical analysis, I conclude that sec. 943.20(1)(b), Stats., does not contain a freakish definition of embezzlement. I also conclude that the use of the terms "uses," "transfers," "conceals" and "retains possession of," or similar words, have a long history in Wisconsin. That history, abridged somewhat, shows the following.
Revised Stats. (1849), ch. 134, secs. 22-26 define various sorts of embezzlement using the words "embezzle," "fraudulently convert," "take," "sell" and "dispose *326of." Section 4418, Stats. (1913), uses "embezzle," "fraudulently convert," "take," "carry away" and "secrete." Section 343.20, Stats. (1929), uses the words "embezzle," "fraudulently convert," "take," "carry away" and "secrete." Section 943.20(l)(b), Stats. (1955), uses the words found in the present statute.
The concepts of using, transferring, concealing and retaining possession of another's property have been a part of Wisconsin criminal law since statehood. Then, as now, these concepts have been stated in the disjunctive. Nor is the Wisconsin definition of embezzlement unique. Michigan prohibits embezzlement using the words "dispose of," "convert," "take" and "secrete" dis-junctively. Michigan Comp. Laws Ann. § 750.174 (West 1991). Illinois prohibits embezzlement in its theft statute, III. Comp. Stat. Ann. 720 ILCS 5/16-1 (West/Smith-Hurd 1993), using the words "obtains or exerts unauthorized control over." Iowa defines embezzlement as theft, using the words "using," "disposing of," "conceals" and "appropriates" in the disjunctive. Iowa Code § 714.1 (1993). Minnesota also defines embezzlement as theft, using the words "takes," "uses," "transfers," "conceals" and "retains possession of' in the disjunctive. Minnesota Stat. Ann. § 609.52, subd. 2. (West 1987 & Supp. 1993).
All of the states surrounding Wisconsin use more than one word, in the disjunctive, to prohibit embezzlement. The words used by these states are similar or identical to the words pertaining to embezzlement found in our statute prohibiting theft, sec. 943.20(l)(b), Stats.: "uses," "transfers," "conceals" and "retains possession of."
I conclude that under Schad's "long history" and "widespread use" tests, Seymour was not deprived of due process of law by the trial court's refusal to instruct *327the jury that it must be unanimous as to which acts Seymour committed. Schad makes it clear that although the state cannot have it all ways at once, states have great latitude in defining, their criminal law. It is only where a district attorney wishes to prosecute under statutes which have a generic or freakish combination of methods by which a crime may be committed that he or she must exercise caution, and then only if the jury is not required to unanimously decide the method used by the defendant.
The majority's response to Schad is to conclude that the case is irrelevant because Seymour does not claim that the legislature's definition of theft in sec. 943.20(l)(b), Stats., is freakish. Seymour does not make that claim. But the Schad court held that in the absence of such a claim, the fourteenth amendment was not offended where a state permitted a jury to convict without stating which of two different factual circumstances it had used to arrive at its guilty verdict.
The problem that Seymour posits is that he might have been convicted even though twelve jurors did not agree that his actions constituted a particular crime. That problem occurs, whether the state defines the "crime" by alternative means of commission or as a series of elements or offenses, whenever a disjunctive instruction is given without a requirement of unanimity. These distinctions have no effect on the deliberations of jurors so instructed. And the significant point of Schad is that a conviction under these circumstances does not offend the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment.
The defendant in Schad made the same argument that Seymour makes — the requirement of jury unanimity necessitated setting his conviction aside. Five *328members of the Supreme Court rejected that assertion, identifying it as a due process challenge.
Were I writing for a majority, I would now address Seymour's other assertions of error. But in a dissent, an explanation of additional reasons why I would affirm Seymour's judgment of conviction has little value. The slim benefit of such an analysis is outweighed by the efficient allocation of judicial resources. Accordingly, I limit this dissent to my reasons for differing with the majority's jury-unanimity analysis.

 Unless otherwise noted, citations to this case are to the plurality opinion delivered by Justice Souter and joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices O'Connor and Kennedy.