Court Opinion

ID: 9686243
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 15:35:28.839963+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:18:16.532444
License: Public Domain

Beilfuss and Connor T. Hansen, JJ.
(concurring). We see little or no valid reason to distinguish municipal ordinances that have statutory counterparts with those that do not so as to require different burdens of proof to establish a violation of the ordinance. The classification of forfeiture for a municipal ordinance is distinctive enough to require a uniform burden of proof.
The admonition of the dissent in Madison v. Geier (1965), 27 Wis. 2d 687, 701, 702, 135 N. W. 2d 761, is clearly demonstrated here:
“Henceforward it appears that there will be one burden of proof in forfeiture cases which involve crimes and a different burden of proof in those which do not involve crimes. Since there is no ready reference source to determine whether an ordinance involves a crime, we anticipate that this distinction will create uncertainty among litigants. Presumably counsel will have to scrutinize the statute book to determine whether the ordinance violation charged is set forth in the precise same terms as an enactment by the legislature.”
Not only will the necessity of applying different burdens of proof dependent upon statutory counterparts *97lead to confusion and error, it will, we believe, seem needlessly technical to the layman and those of the legal profession alike. Under the rule as adopted by the majority, a greater burden of proof must be met to obtain a conviction for some parking ordinances than it will to brand a man a keeper of a disorderly house under an ordinance like the one under consideration. This should not be required nor permitted.
We would adopt the middle burden of proof described in Madison v. Geier, supra, in all forfeiture cases based upon municipal ordinances.
In the present case the majority concludes that the defendants must have had knowledge of the events constituting disorderly conduct and that under the minimum burden of proof knowledge has been sufficiently proved. We agree with that opinion in that respect, but would take it one step further. We believe that under the middle burden of proof that knowledge was proved and the violation established.