Court Opinion

ID: 9585152
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 22:56:55.288146+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:33:05.567632
License: Public Domain

Currie, J.
(dissenting). The attorney general and district attorney concede the truthfulness and good faith of the attorney who represented defendant at the trial in stating that he was ignorant of the provisions of sec. 355.07, Stats., requiring advance written notice being given to the district attorney of certain facts as a condition precedent to introducing evidence to establish an alibi. It is also undisputed that defendant’s counsel verbally informed the district attorney in advance of trial that he intended to prove an alibi. Then we have the further additional fact that the defendant was a seventeen-year-old boy, who, at the option of the trial court, could have been tried as a juvenile offender in juvenile court.
The last sentence of sec. 355.07, Stats., provides, “In default of such notice, evidence of the alibi shall not be received unless the court, for good cause shown, shall otherwise order.” Clearly this made it a matter of discretion for the learned trial court whether or not to find upon the foregoing facts that good cause did exist for relaxing the requirement of the giving of the written notice. However, in ruling on the district attorney’s objection to the offering of alibi testimony, the trial court stated,
“. . . the court must rule, pursuant to the objection of the district attorney, that since no written notice of the intention to use alibi was served pursuant to section 355.07 of the statutes, that the court must sustain any objection to any such proposed testimony.”
*542Because of the trial judge's use of the word "must” it would appear that he did not consider that he had any discretion in the matter, but instead was required to rule that as a matter of law the foregoing facts did not constitute good cause for relaxing the statutory requirement of the written notice. While it would not have constituted an abuse of discretion to have determined that the facts did not establish good cause, we have here a situation where the trial court did not attempt to exercise the discretion which the statute conferred.
This error might well be held sufficient to require a new trial. In any event we believe this to be a proper case to invoke the discretionary power vested in this court by sec. 251.09, Stats., and order a new trial in the interests of justice.
I am authorized to state that Mr. Justice Steinle concurs in this dissent.