State of Wisconsin, Plaintiff-Respondent-Petitioner v. Elmer F. Wyss, Defendant-Appellant

Summary

The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed a court of appeals decision that had granted Elmer Wyss a new trial in the interest of justice after his first-degree murder conviction on purely circumstantial evidence. The court held the evidence sufficient to exclude to a moral certainty every reasonable hypothesis of innocence, upheld the admission of the victim's statements to her psychiatrist, the defendant's jealousy statements, and his 'throat slit' remark, and rejected his vicinage and juror-candor claims. It announced a two-part test for new trials based on juror nondisclosure (an incorrect or incomplete answer to a material voir dire question, plus probable bias), and held the court of appeals erred as a matter of law by ordering a discretionary reversal without finding a substantial probability that a new trial would produce a different result, reinstating the conviction. Justice Abrahamson dissented, would have affirmed the court of appeals, and criticized the majority's uncited 'substantial probability' requirement and its inconsistently stated voir dire test; Justice Callow, joined by Justices Day, Steinmetz, Ceci and Bablitch, concurred separately to defend the two-category framework of sec. 752.35 against the dissent's proposed third class of cases.