Court: |
Supreme Court of Wisconsin |
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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. |
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Posture: |
Appeal previously heard in Milwaukee Circuit Court. |
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Issue: |
Whether the written criminal complaint in the case was sufficient to
constitute probable cause for the charge of burglary. |
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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. |
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Rule: |
There must be facts in the complaint that are sufficient, or give rise
to reasonable inferences sufficient to establish probable cause. |
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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. |
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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. |