COURT OF APPEALS DECISION DATED AND RELEASED November
30, 1995 |
NOTICE |
A party may file with the Supreme Court a petition to review an
adverse decision by the Court of Appeals. See § 808.10 and Rule
809.62, Stats. |
This opinion is subject to further editing. If published, the official version will appear in the bound
volume of the Official Reports. |
No. 95-2616-CR-NM
STATE OF WISCONSIN IN
COURT OF APPEALS
DISTRICT IV
STATE
OF WISCONSIN,
Plaintiff-Respondent,
v.
DANIEL
L. MARTZ,
Defendant-Appellant.
APPEAL
from a judgment of the circuit court for Rock County: JAMES WELKER, Judge. Affirmed.
Before
Eich, C.J., Dykman and Vergeront, JJ.
PER
CURIAM. Counsel for Daniel Martz has
filed a no merit report pursuant to Rule
809.32, Stats. Martz has not responded to the report. Upon our independent investigation of the
record as mandated by Anders v. California, 386 U.S. 738 (1967),
we conclude that there is no arguable merit to any issue that could be raised
on appeal.
In
1990, Martz pled guilty to second-degree sexual assault of a child,
§ 948.02(2), Stats. The court withheld sentence and placed Martz
on five years' probation. After
incidents of driving while intoxicated in 1993 and 1994, his probation was
revoked. He was then sentenced to a
four-year prison term, with 180 days of sentence credit. Martz did not preserve his appeal rights
from the original conviction, and his sole concern on this appeal is with the
length of his sentence.
The
trial court properly sentenced Martz.
The trial court has wide discretion in sentencing. State v. Krueger, 119 Wis.2d
327, 336, 351 N.W.2d 738, 743 (Ct. App. 1984).
We presume that the trial court acted properly in sentencing the
defendant, and the burden is on the defendant to prove otherwise. Id. In sentencing Martz, the court considered his history of
alcohol-related crimes and misdeeds, the need to protect the public from future
conduct of the same sort, his continued failure to accept responsibility for
his conduct, and the need to deter others and to avoid unduly depreciating the
seriousness of sexually assaulting a child.
In Martz's favor, the court also considered that the victim was fifteen
and engaged in the conduct willingly and that no sexual acts beyond touching
occurred. The maximum sentence Martz
faced was ten years in prison. Given
the factors considered by the court, a four-year term was the product of a
reasoned decision and was not excessive.
Upon
our independent review of the record as mandated by Anders, we
conclude that there are no other potentially meritorious issues and that any
further proceedings would be frivolous and without arguable merit. We therefore affirm the judgment of
conviction and relieve Martz's counsel of any further representation of him in
this appeal.
By
the Court.—Judgment affirmed.