Hamiel v. State

1979

Court: Wisconsin Court of Appeals

Facts: Hamiel and friends start to rob a pharmacy. There's a cop car in the neighborhood. And the manager was there.

Posture: Motion to dismiss because the state didn't prove the intervention of some extraneous factor. Convicted at trial, and also appeals about insufficiency of the evidence at the preliminary hearing.

Issue: Does the state have to prove what caused the abandonment? Was the evidence sufficient?

Holding: No. Yes.

Rule: There's no need to distinguish between causes, as long as it's shown beyond reasonable doubt that the defendant didn't voluntarity withdraw.

Reasoning: The owner or the squad car could either have scared him off, and there was plenty of evidence to support the theory that there was about to be a robbery.

Dicta: