Court Opinion

ID: 9670715
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:24:32.655458+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:06.092821
License: Public Domain

BROWN, J.
¶ 34. (concurring). I read Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U.S. 740 (1984), to say that neither exigent circumstances nor hot pursuit justify entry into a home where the nature of the offense is a nonjailable, civil forfeiture traffic violation. That is all. Nowhere did the Welsh court say that its holding applied to misdemeanors as well. The Court did say that the gravity of the underlying offense is a consideration and did also say that the circumstances are more clearly exigent when the offense is a "serious crime." Id. at 752-63. But the court stopped short of drawing a bright line.
¶ 35. That bright line was drawn by a panel of this court in State v. Mikkelson, 2002 WI App 152, 256 Wis. 2d 132, 647 N.W.2d 421. The Mikkelson court determined that warrantless entry into a home on grounds of exigent circumstances or hot pursuit is reserved for felonious crimes. Id., ¶ 17.1 disagree with *178that holding and, should there be a petition to review this case, I urge our supreme court to take this case up and review Mikkelson.
¶ 36. It is my view that the Welsh court was mesmerized by what it considered to be the unusual facts in that case. The pursuit of Welsh into his home was a result of his alleged driving while intoxicated, which the Court pointed out was a "noncriminal, civil forfeiture offense for which no imprisonment is possible." Welsh, 466 U.S. at 754. The Court basically opined that if the State of Wisconsin thought so little of first-offense driving while intoxicated that it would not even impose jail time, then it certainly was not sufficient grounds for invading the privacy of a home without a warrant. See id. at 754 n.14. The Court said that "in the circumstances presented by this case" it had "no occasion to consider whether the Fourth Amendment may impose an absolute ban on warrantless home arrests for certain minor offenses." Id. at 749 n.11.
¶ 37. I am convinced that the Mikkelson court misread Welsh to say otherwise. The Mikkelson court seized on a string cite in Welsh to United States v. Santana, 427 U.S. 38, 42-43 (1976), where, in parentheses following the citation, the Court noted that Santana involved "hot pursuit of a fleeing felon." Welsh, 466 U.S. at 750; Mikkelson, 256 Wis. 2d 132, ¶ 17. But the Santana reference was just part of the Court's long explanation that, to date, the Court had had occasion to decide hot pursuit and exigent circumstances cases only when they involved felony arrests. As footnote 11 points out, the Court reserved for another day whether war-rantless entry could also be allowed for certain minor offenses.
¶ 38. It is my opinion that there are certain misdemeanors which our legislature has deemed serious. *179The legislature has divided misdemeanors into classes. The Class A misdemeanors are obviously considered to be more serious than the Class B and C misdemeanors because penalties are greater. I note that both obstructing an officer contrary to Wis. Stat. § 946.41(1) and treating an animal in a cruel manner, either intentionally or negligently, are Class A misdemeanors. Thus, the legislature has made a policy choice that, while violating either of these criminal statutes does not expose a person to prison, it certainly exposes the person to serious jail time. It is my view that, at the very least, the governmental interest in pursuing those who have violated Class A misdemeanors outweighs the privacy interests involved. I can certainly understand if a court refuses to approve such a pursuit for a Class B misdemeanor like disorderly conduct or a Class C misdemeanor such as loitering by a prostitute on the street or where intoxicating liquors are sold. But Class A misdemeanors like battery, repeat drunk driving offenses, obstructing — and yes, animal abuse — are very serious in the minds of Wisconsin's citizenry. I do not read Welsh the way the Mikkelson court has read it.1
¶ 39. Having said that, I am bound by Mikkelson because Cook v. Cook, 208 Wis. 2d 166, 189-90, 560 N.W.2d 246 (1997), so mandates. For that reason, I concur with the lead opinion.
¶ 40. One more thing. I wholeheartedly agree with the majority opinion's rejection of the State's *180argument that we need not follow Mikkelson because it is dicta. The State seems to think that if a narrower holding in the decision can be found, anything else written by the court on another ground is dicta. That is nonsense. First, courts can and often do give alternative reasons for their decisions. Alternative rationales are not dicta. Woods v. Interstate Realty Co., 337 U.S. 535, 537 (1949) ("[W]here a decision rests on two or more grounds, none can be relegated to the category of obiter dictum"). Second, courts do not write just to pass the time away. We write because we have something that needs to be said. When we intentionally take something up, research it and provide a reasoned explication of what we want to say, it is for transparency purposes: it shows the public the factors that played an important part in the decision. It also shows the results of the collegial give-and-take that occurred during the decision process. And it shows that the court means to mark the law on a subject. Third, the old-world view that a dictum is a statement in an opinion not necessary to the decision of the case is, at its core, absurd. Taken to its logical end, the only statement in an appellate opinion strictly necessary to the decision is the order of the court. As one commentator has noted, a "quibble like this shows how useless the definition is." Dictum Revisited, 4 Stan. L. Rev. 509, 509 (1952).
¶ 41. The term "dicta," in my view, is often too broadly defined, usually by a lawyer who is searching for a way not to be bound by a prior published decision. But the term should be limited to those situations where a court notes, in passing, that a certain issue is lurking in the background, gives its off-the-cuff opinion without analysis and leaves it at that. That is what dicta is. Even though I disagree with Mikkelson, its discussion of Welsh was certainly not dicta. The panel *181zeroed in on Welsh, interpreted it and set a bright line rule. If the State disagrees with Mikkelson, and it obviously does, its recourse is to petition for review and ask the supreme court to overrule Mikkelson. But it should not try to pass it off as dicta.

 I note that several cases in other jurisdictions have interpreted Welsh v. Wisconsin, 466 U.S. 740 (1984), the way I do. I will not indulge in an endless display of string cites, but I will cite a few. See State v. Paul, 548 N.W.2d 260 (Minn. 1996); State v. Lamont, 631 N.W.2d 603 (S.D. 2001); People v. Mendez, 948 P.2d 105 (Colo. Ct. App. 1997), aff'd, 986 P.2d 275 (Colo. 1999).