Court Opinion

ID: 9724133
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 10:45:41.874116+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:24:56.380576
License: Public Domain

SHIRLEY S. ABRAHAMSON, J.
(concurring). I agree that the decision of the court of appeals should be affirmed. In my opinion, this decision is inconsistent with State v. Lomagro, 113 Wis. 2d 582, 335 N.W.2d 583 (1983). In Lomagro no unanimity instruction was required when the defendant was charged with a single count of sexual assault and evidence of six separate acts was presented.
Furthermore, as I urged in my concurrence in Manson v. State, 101 Wis. 2d 413, 432, 304 N.W.2d 729 (1981), this court should reconsider its reliance on United States v. Gipson, 553 F.2d 453 (5th Cir. 1977). In Manson, I wrote that "Gipson does not offer a firm, fixed rule for ... determining which statutorily prohibited acts or ... ways of committing a single offense are sufficiently synonymous or analogous not to require a unanimity instruction and... which... are sufficiently conceptually distinct and different to require a unanimity instruction." Manson, 101 Wis. 2d at 438 (Abrahamson, J. concurring).