Court Opinion

ID: 9853547
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 05:50:03.988217+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:22:50.957106
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(concurring). The circuit court for Sauk county has declared ch. 980 unconstitutional; the state has appealed. Damon Gudenschwager seeks release from confinement pending the state's appeal.
Numerous cases involving ch. 980 — the sexually violent person commitments law — are presently in the courts. We have accepted review of four cases challenging the constitutionality of the statute. Nineteen other cases are pending in the court of appeals, awaiting our decision. Since Gudenschwager, another case involving release pending appeal has come before this court. State v. John J. Watson (No. 95-0300). Many more cases are probably in the circuit courts, some involving the statute's constitutionality, others addressing defendants' motions for release pending appeal.
In the aggregate, cases involving ch. 980 are or will be consuming a substantial amount of the time and energy of the circuit courts and court of appeals. For *445example, the Watson case alone has been through both the circuit court and the court of appeals several times before reaching this court.
Nothing in ch. 980 or the per curiam opinion in the case at bar will prevent Damon Gudenschwager from returning to the circuit court with another petition for release. In a new petition, Gudenschwager is likely to request that the circuit court order the appropriate agency to provide facilities suitable for the court to exercise discretion to release him.
Only after this court rules on the constitutionality of ch. 980 will the other courts be relieved of some of the burden of these ch. 980 cases. I believe this court should schedule the pending constitutional cases for oral argument before our summer recess, preferably in April, and decide them as promptly as possible. By doing so, we will give guidance to the circuit courts and the court of appeals. We will also clear up the confusion among offenders and the general public about the status of the law.
For the reasons set forth, I concur.