Court Opinion

ID: 9669666
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 03:04:38.318027+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:15:59.522748
License: Public Domain

*367GARTZKE, P. J.
Daniel P. McDonald, once judge of the circuit court for LaFayette county, was convicted of first-degree murder, sec. 940.01, Stats., and sentenced to a term of life imprisonment. He timely filed a notice of intent to seek postconviction relief from the trial court and to appeal to this court, but died before the trial court ruled on his motion. He died by suicide.
After his death McDonald’s attorneys moved the trial court for an order vacating his conviction and sentence and dismissing the criminal information. The trial court denied the motion. McDonald’s attorneys then appealed from that order and the judgment of conviction.
McDonald’s attorneys agree his death moots all issues which could be raised in postconviction proceedings and on appeal. Moot proceedings are ordinarily dismissed. McDonald’s attorneys, however, request that we not only dismiss the appeal but remand the case to the trial court with instructions to vacate all criminal proceedings against him, from their initiation through the sentence.
When the facts are undisputed, whether justice requires vacating all proceedings before McDonald’s suicide is a question of law. We hold that justice does not so require. We therefore dismiss the appeal with no direction to vacate any of the proceedings against McDonald.
While the facts are undisputed, they are sparse. No circumstance surrounding McDonald’s death is of record, except that it was caused by "Doxepin Intoxication” resulting from an "overdose.” His attorneys stipulated that he died by suicide and did not request an evidentiary hearing.
*368In State v. Krysheski, 119 Wis. 2d 84, 349 N.W.2d 729 (Ct. App. 1984), the defendant died of a heart attack while his motion for a new trial was pending. We held that death mooted the issues because the result on appeal could have no practical effect. We concluded that because defendant’s death made postconviction relief meaningless, it was appropriate to dismiss his motion for a new trial.
We went further in Krysheski. We concluded that all proceedings in the criminal prosecution, from its inception through the conviction, should be abated. We said:
Abatement of all proceedings is based on the recognition that a defendant pursuing an appeal of right has not yet received all of the safeguards of the judicial system. Death prior to appeal works a deprivation of a final determination of the case’s merits. Because an appeal plays an integral part in our system for final adjudication of guilt or innocence, justice requires the abatement of a conviction where the merits of the appeal are left unresolved.
119 Wis. 2d at 88, 349 N.W.2d at 732.
We added, "An abatement of proceedings is not a comment on a defendant’s guilt or innocence. Rather, it is a return to the status quo before commencement of the case based on a determination to hold the case moot due to the futility of resolving the defendant’s appeal." 119 Wis. 2d at 89, 349 N.W.2d at 732.
Our reasoning in Krysheski is inapplicable when the death is a suicide. In the absence of contrary evidence, we are entitled to assume that the person who takes his own life does so by choice. A defendant who chooses death pending a request for postconvic*369tion relief deprives himself of a final determination of his case’s merits. Justice does not require abatement or vacation of a conviction when the defendant himself prevents a review of the merits, whether by suicide, a failure to appeal or a request that an appeal be dismissed.
Were we to hold otherwise, a convicted defendant could use suicide to ensure the "return to the status quo before commencement of’ the criminal action, a return we directed by way of abatement in Krysheski, 119 Wis. 2d at 89, 349 N.W.2d at 732. Whatever the view of the courts, a return to that status quo would justify the public and the victim, or the victim’s family, in believing that the defendant succeeded through suicide when he would have lost on appeal.
The only appellate decision favoring abatement for a suicide has not convinced us. United States v. Oberlin, 718 F.2d 894, 896 (9th Cir. 1983), abated all criminal proceedings after holding that the defendant had not waived his right to appeal by killing himself, stating simply that "[t]he contention that suicide is the 'ultimate waiver’ is without merit. The doctrine of waiver has no connection to the issue of abatement.”1 Id. at 896. In United States v. Chin, 633 F. Supp. 624, 628 (E.D. Va. 1986), a district court found that a defendant’s suicide after a guilty verdict and before further proceedings was a "conscious and deliberate” choice, declined to follow Oberlin, and refused to abate the criminal proceedings.2
*370We hold that because McDonald’s death was by suicide after he began proceedings for postconviction relief, the trial court properly refused to vacate the information, conviction and sentence.
By the Court. — Appeal dismissed.

In Krysheski is relied on two federal decisions and one state decision, none of which involved a suicide, as well as United States v. Oberlin, 718 F.2d 894 (9th Cir. 1983), for the general rule that death abates all proceedings in the prosecution.

 The only other appellate decision brought to our attention, State v. Miller, 578 S.W.2d 943 (Mo. 1979), dismissed the criminal *370appeal of a suicide with no discussion whether the conviction should be abated.