State ex rel. Evanow, Appellant, v. Seraphim, County Judge, Respondent

1968

Court: Supreme Court of Wisconsin

Facts: Not too many are given. Evanow was implicated in burglarious conduct by some accomplices, one of whom was a police officer. He was evidently convicted (or pled guilty to) burglary, but appealed on the basis that the charge was invalid.

Posture: Appeal previously heard in Milwaukee Circuit Court.

Issue: Whether the written criminal complaint in the case was sufficient to constitute probable cause for the charge of burglary.

Holding: The complaint may have been lame, but it was sufficient because it had the essential facts (who, what, where, when, why, and who said so). Affirmed.

Rule: There must be facts in the complaint that are sufficient, or give rise to reasonable inferences sufficient to establish probable cause.

Reasoning: The defendant's believes the requirements for a criminal complaint involve complete detail, and the information should be scrutinized the way evidence at trial is. These are wrong beliefs: the complaint seeks only to establish probable cause, not defeat reasonable doubt. For this, we don't need every last detail-- only those which are essential contributors to probable cause. Moreover, the credibility of evidence is to be decided at trial, and this is not a sort of pre-trial. This particular complaint, while imperfect, did set forth the necessary information to support a charge.

Dicta: It would be too much to require that self-identified partners in a burglary be established to be pillars of the community or leaders in the scout movement before their admissions could be found to have the ring of truth.