COA rejects IAC claims on deficient performance and prejudice grounds

State v. Julie A. Minnema, 2022AP446-CR, District 4, 6/8/23 (one-judge decision, not eligible for publication); case activity (including briefs)

In an unusually lengthy OWI second appeal, the court rejects Minnema's ineffective assistance of counsel claims either because Minnema failed to establish deficient performance or because Minnema failed to establish prejudice. (Opinion, ¶1).

At trial, Minnema's defense was that she started drinking after arriving at her residence and only in response to a stressful interaction with her then husband. (Op., ¶¶7-8). Thereafter, when a deputy, who was home on his lunchbreak, observed the interaction and approached Minnema, the evidence of intoxication he observed, and the eventual .282 BAC result, had nothing to do with Minnema's prior operation of her vehicle. A jury convicted Minnema of the OWI charge, as well as PAC, resisiting arrest and felony bail jumping.

Postconviction and on appeal, Minnema argued that her trial attorney was constitutionally ineffective in four ways: (1) failing to demand and review all discovery; (2) failing to object to an amended criminal complaint and an untimely witness list; (3) failing to investigate the deputy's account of the incident and the reliability of the blood vial used to store her blood draw; and (4) failing to object to the admission of other acts evidence. (Op., ¶11).

In the opposite of short order, the court rejects each of Minnema's claims. With regard to Minnema's claims that her trial counsel failed to investigate the deputy's account and failed to object to other acts evidence, the court concludes that Minnema failed to meet her burden to establish deficient performance. With regard to the other claims, the court assumes deficient performance, but concludes Minnema failed to establish prejudice. (Op., ¶¶59-60).