Court Opinion

ID: 9730491
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 15:14:00.145734+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:26:06.879870
License: Public Domain

STEINMETZ, J.
(concurring). I join Justice Callow's concurring opinion but also write separately. I agree with the tenor but not the temper of the majority decision. I believe it ignores what happened here and what frequently occurs in probation-restitution cases. The trial court took one position on restitution and the probation officer took another position. The judge has the sole responsibility for determining the disposition after a guilty finding.
The trial judge did not set forth a schedule or method for making restitution in his original order. However, he did set restitution at $1,467 with "payments in such manner as the department shall direct." Probation was originally imposed for five years on November 24, 1975.
Almost five years elapsed before the judge again saw the defendant to consider the probation agent's request for a one-year extension of probation. In the meantime, the defendant's husband had been sentenced to prison in 1978. Thereafter, the defendant was the sole support of herself and her three children, ages four, nine and eleven. At the extension hearing, the judge was informed that the defendant had paid only $105 during the first two years of probation, during which time her husband was not incarcerated. That amounts to about $4.38 per month. *515There is no explanation why the probation officer permitted Davis to only pay $4.38 per month toward a $1,467 obligation which was to be paid in five years. At that rate, only $262.80 would have been recovered in five years. The probation department's initial duty, in light of the judge's order for full restitution in five years, was to establish a payment schedule for full restitution or seek a modification of the amount of restitution based on the defendant's ability to pay.
It was only after five years had passed that the defendant's income and expenses, and therefore her ability to pay restitution, were analyzed by the probation department. Therefore, because of the department, the defendant made little progress toward satisfying her restitution obligation. Then, when the court extended probation for one year in 1980, the department ordered the defendant to pay $20 per month on the basis of a budgeting counsel- or's analysis. The department asked for an extension that would only collect another $240 during the one-year extension. The department's schedule still made defendant fall far short of accomplishing full restitution as ordered by the court. Nonetheless, the department did not advise the court of this fact.
The department’s only authority concerning restitution was to establish a schedule of payments. The court ordered the amount of restitution. If the department was aware that full restitution could not be accomplished because the defendant lacked the ability to pay, then the department should have made that fact known to the judge early in the probationary period. If that been done during the first five years of probation, or even during the first one-year extension, the judge would have been able to order charity work as an alternative or ordered Davis to secure a second job, after determining the effects of such an order on the well-being of the defendant's children. In this regard, I agree that $2 per hour credit for *516charity work is woefully inadequate and any amount less than the minimum wage would be arbitrary.
In 1981 the defendant returned to court and probation was extended for another two years even though the probation officer recommended that supervision be discontinued. Again in 1983, the judge extended probation another two years despite the renewed recommendation that probation be discontinued. Certainly, at those times, and under conditions of such conflict, the department should have been impressed that the judge who sets the conditions of probation, not the department, was going to insist on full restitution before discharge of the defendant.
The entire history of this probationary matter shows a contest of wills between the judge who has the authority to order restitution and the department which has the duty to collect the restitution or periodically inform the judge of the impossibility of success under the circumstances. If the department informs the court of the impossibility of paying restitution, then the judge with the assistance of the department can set available imaginative alternatives to the payment of money from defendant's income. Here, a conflict developed between the authority of the court and the probation agent, which did little to serve the judicial system's necessary cohesiveness.
In Huggett v. State, 83 Wis. 2d 790, 800, 266 N.W.2d 403 (1978), we stated: "We have previously emphasized the importance of the trial court's determining a probationer's ability to pay in imposing restitution." I believe that investigation as to the ability to pay can and should be assigned to the department with the ultimate decision to be made by the judge and formalized in an order near the commencement of probation.
Under sec. 973.09, Stats., effective 1979,1 believe the judge, consistent with Huggett, may assign the obligation of investigation as to the defendant's ability to pay to the department with a report to the court and ultimately an *517order of the court. Intertwined with the defendant's ability to pay is the total amount of restitution that should be ordered. This may not necessarily be the same as the total amount of loss or damages sustained, even though that should be the preferred aim of restitution.
The department was responsible for the lack of supervision over the defendant during the first two years of probation. It is apparent from this record that the judge believed full restitution was essential for rehabilitation of the defendant. He did not have the full cooperation of the department in reaching that result.
At the last hearing, eight years after probation was imposed, the judge was informed through the department's report that the restitution had been made except for $298.48. It appears that degree of success was accomplished by the judge's persistence because the department was willing to not collect any more in 1981 when only approximately $345 of $1,467 had been paid by the defendant. At that time, the department recommended that probation be terminated.
Section 973.09(3)(b), Stats., changed the test for extending probation when the defendant fails to complete restitution. Under the new law, probationers must establish substantial reason not to extend probation when restitution is not completed. This approaches collection by the use of probation, which Huggett v. State, 83 Wis. 2d at 804, decried as not permitted by the former statute. In this regard, the majority does state that continuation of probation in this case in order to collect restitution alone is an abuse of discretion. Whether this result is mandated by this court's previous decisions or the new statute is not discussed nor resolved by this case because the judge did not refer to or rely on the new statute in the 1983 hearing, if it applied on these facts.
I would reverse the probation extension order based on the majority's application of the test in Huggett. I would wait for another case to resolve the possible conflict *518between Huggett and the new see. 973.09(3)(b), Stats. Here, there was not cause to extend probation, based on the length of probation, the neglect of the department in the early years of probation, and the later efforts by the judge to collect restitution that varied or added to his original order. Changes in probation orders are permissible but matters of notice and reasonableness must be considered.