District IV
February 11, 2015
To:
Hon. Ramona A. Gonzalez
Circuit Court Judge
La Crosse County Courthouse
333 Vine Street
La Crosse, WI 54601
Pamela Radtke
Clerk of Circuit Court
La Crosse County Courthouse
333 Vine Street, Room 1200
La Crosse, WI 54601
Tim Gruenke
District Attorney
333 Vine St. Rm. 1100
La Crosse, WI 54601
Steven D. Grunder
Asst. State Public Defender
P.O. Box 7862
Madison, WI 53707-7862
Nancy A. Noet
Assistant Attorney General
P.O. Box 7857
Madison, WI 53707-7857
You are hereby notified that the Court has entered the following opinion and order:
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In re the commitment of Randy Poff: State of Wisconsin v. Randy Poff (L.C. # 2010CI1) |
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Before Blanchard, P.J., Lundsten and Sherman, JJ.
Randy Poff appeals a judgment committing him as a sexually violent person under WIS. STAT. ch. 980 (2013-14).[1] Poff argues the trial court violated his constitutional right to equal protection when it refused to apply Wis. Stat. § 907.02(1), which adopted the Daubert[2] reliability standard for expert testimony, at his December 2011 trial. Based upon our review of the briefs and record, we conclude at conference that this case is appropriate for summary disposition. We reject Poff’s arguments, and summarily affirm the judgment. See Wis. Stat. Rule 809.21.
On July 2, 2010, the State petitioned for Poff’s ch. 980 commitment. The Legislature subsequently amended Wisconsin’s expert witness statute to adopt the Daubert reliability standard. The statute applies to actions and special proceedings commenced on or after February 1, 2011. 2011 Wis. Act 2, § 45(5). An initial trial, held in June 2011, ended in a mistrial after two days of testimony. Another trial was scheduled for December 2011 and Poff moved to exclude the State’s expert evidence under the heightened evidentiary standards of the Daubert statute. The trial court denied the motion. A jury ultimately found that Poff was a sexually violent person, and the court entered a judgment committing him under ch. 980. This appeal follows.
Poff argues that the trial court violated his right to equal protection when it refused to apply the Daubert evidentiary standard to the State’s expert witnesses at trial. We conclude this case is controlled by our supreme court’s decision in State v. Alger, 2015 WI 3, __ Wis. 2d __, __ N.W.2d __. In that case, Alger argued, in relevant part, that his right to equal protection was violated when the Daubert evidentiary standard did not apply to and thus bar the State’s expert testimony in his ch. 980 discharge petition trial. Id., ¶2. Before reaching the merits of Alger’s argument, the court first determined which level of judicial scrutiny applied, ultimately concluding that rational basis review applied to the equal protection claim. Id., ¶¶39, 48. This level of judicial scrutiny “is deferential to the legislature” and “[a] legislative classification satisfies rational basis review if any reasonably conceivable state of facts … could provide a rational basis for the classification.” Id., ¶50 (internal quotations omitted).
Although Poff acknowledges that his ch. 980 action commenced before the Daubert statute’s effective date, he asserts there is no rational basis for trying contemporaneous ch. 980 cases under different rules of evidence where the only distinction is the date on which the State filed the petition. Alger similarly argued that the failure to apply the Daubert statute to expert testimony in his discharge petition trial violated equal protection because it arbitrarily differentiated between discharge proceedings based upon when the underlying commitment proceedings began. Id., ¶51. The Alger court recognized, however, that “[w]hen determining which cases will be subject to a new rule of evidence, the legislature is not constitutionally required to differentiate between various types of cases and retroactively apply the new rule to some types of cases and not others.” Id., ¶57. Rather, “the legislature may differentiate between cases that were commenced before and after a particular date and may apply the new rule of evidence to only cases that were commenced after that date.” Id.
The court noted that the legislature’s decision to utilize an effective date for application of the statute was rationally related to achieving the legitimate governmental interests of ensuring the fair treatment of litigants; preserving judicial resources; and avoiding confusion, difficulty and the disruption of pending litigation. See id., ¶¶55-56. The court ultimately held that the legislature’s decision to apply the Daubert evidentiary standard to actions or special proceedings commenced on or after February 1, 2011, satisfies rational basis review, thus passing constitutional muster. Id., ¶55.
Poff attempts to distinguish Alger, arguing that Alger turned “largely on procedure,” whereas Poff’s case focuses “on the unique attributes of ch. 980 trials as illustrated by the differing—and changing—expert testimony presented to Poff’s jury.” We are not persuaded that this purported distinction is grounds for distinguishing Alger. Consistent with Alger, we conclude Poff’s equal protection claim fails and we affirm the judgment.
Upon the foregoing,
IT IS ORDERED that the judgment is summarily affirmed pursuant to Wis. Stat. Rule 809.21.
Diane M. Fremgen
Clerk of Court of Appeals