State v. Jonathan P. Medeiros ( 2023 )

COURT OF APPEALS
DECISION NOTICE
DATED AND FILED This opinion is subject to further editing. If
published, the official version will appear in
the bound volume of the Official Reports.
December 12, 2023
A party may file with the Supreme Court a
Samuel A. Christensen petition to review an adverse decision by the
Clerk of Court of Appeals Court of Appeals. See WIS. STAT. § 808.10
and RULE 809.62.
Appeal No. 2022AP1768-CR Cir. Ct. No. 2021CF12
STATE OF WISCONSIN IN COURT OF APPEALS
DISTRICT III
STATE OF WISCONSIN,
PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENT,
V.
JONATHAN P. MEDEIROS,
DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.
APPEAL from a judgment and an order of the circuit court for
Buffalo County: THOMAS W. CLARK, Judge. Affirmed.
Before Stark, P.J., Hruz and Gill, JJ.
Per curiam opinions may not be cited in any court of this state as precedent
or authority, except for the limited purposes specified in WIS. STAT. RULE 809.23(3).
¶1 PER CURIAM. Jonathan P. Medeiros appeals from a judgment
convicting him of first-degree reckless homicide and from an order denying his
No. 2022AP1768-CR
postconviction motion for resentencing. He claims that his trial counsel provided
constitutionally ineffective assistance by failing to object to comments made by
the prosecutor at sentencing—which Medeiros contends undermined the sentence
recommendation bargained for in the plea agreement. We conclude that the
prosecutor’s comments did not breach the plea agreement and, therefore, his trial
counsel did not provide ineffective assistance. Accordingly, we affirm the
judgment and postconviction order.
BACKGROUND
¶2 According to police reports cited in the complaint and the
presentence investigation report (PSI), Medeiros called 911 to report that he had
shot and killed his wife, Jolene.1 Responding medical personnel discovered Jolene
deceased with a shotgun wound to the head. During a police interview, Medeiros
stated: “I stood up out of bed, grabbed a shotgun, and fucking shot once. She was
screaming at me, going ape shit screaming at me, and I shot again.” At various
points during the interview, Medeiros stated that he had aimed the shotgun at
Jolene’s chest, but that he had never intended to shoot her. When asked why he
had shot Jolene, however, Medeiros responded that she “just kept bitching.”
Medeiros further stated that he and Jolene had been drinking and arguing all day.
Medeiros also acknowledged during the interview that he had threatened to kill
Jolene about six months prior to the shooting and he had, in recent weeks,
threatened to burn down the house he and Jolene shared if Jolene tried to kick him
out.
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Although Medeiros referred to the victim as his wife in his 911 call, he later explained
that the two were not “legally married” but considered themselves to be married.
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No. 2022AP1768-CR
¶3 Based on these allegations, the State initially charged Medeiros with
first-degree intentional homicide. The parties eventually reached a plea
agreement, whereby Medeiros agreed to waive his right to a trial and pled guilty to
a reduced charge of first-degree reckless homicide, while the State agreed to
recommend a sentence of twenty-five years’ initial confinement followed by
fifteen years’ extended supervision.
¶4 Before ultimately allowing the Information to be amended and
accepting the plea, the circuit court questioned the State as to why the reduced
charge was appropriate, and it inquired as to the position of Jolene’s family. The
State responded that Medeiros’s consumption of alcohol, the fight between
Medeiros and Jolene, and Medeiros’s denial of intent to kill Jolene could
“mitigate” the intent element of intentional homicide. The State also explained
that Jolene’s family did not want to go through a trial.
¶5 The PSI included additional information from family members of
both Jolene and Medeiros, a neighbor, and other friends and coworkers of Jolene’s
about Medeiros’s possessive and abusive behavior toward Jolene and his repeated
threats to kill Jolene. The neighbor said that, about three weeks before the
shooting, she and Jolene “had devised a safety plan for Jolene in order to hide or
get away if she needed it.” One of the coworkers described a time when Jolene’s
mother had removed the guns from the home Jolene shared with Medeiros because
Medeiros had been drinking and threatening to kill Jolene.
¶6 At the sentencing hearing, the prosecutor recommended a sentence
of twenty-five years’ initial confinement followed by fifteen years’ extended
supervision, as the State had agreed to do. The prosecutor stated that he had
conferred with the family, law enforcement, and other prosecutors, who all agreed
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No. 2022AP1768-CR
that the proposed sentence would be a “just resolution,” and the prosecutor further
noted that nothing in the PSI altered his belief that the recommendation was
appropriate. The prosecutor reiterated that because the State would have had to
prove intent at trial and the family did not want to go to trial, he had agreed to
reduce the charge to “reckless endangerment [sic] which, of course, the [c]ourt
understands is a possibility of a 60-year prison sentence.”
¶7 While discussing Medeiros’s character, the prosecutor noted that
Medeiros’s acceptance of responsibility—by entering a plea—was “somewhat
muted by the fact that if [the matter] had gone to trial and [the State had]
won … [Medeiros] would have faced a mandatory life imprisonment.” The
prosecutor then commented that the “hard part” of the case for him was that
Medeiros had told Jolene on more than one occasion that he was going to kill her
and then “carried through with his threat to kill her.” The prosecutor characterized
Medeiros’s conduct as “the ultimate act of domestic violence” evincing a
“depraved mind, which goes to the character of the offender and the rehabilitative
needs.” The prosecutor suggested that Medeiros would “need extensive
rehabilitation for the thinking that [led him] to the conclusion that” he had the
right to take the life of the woman he professed to love because she did not do
what he wanted her to do.
¶8 As to the gravity of the offense, the prosecutor observed that,
generally, there are no more serious crimes than homicides and he then noted that
the shooting here was selfish, senseless, and deprived two children of their mother,
as well as two parents of their daughter. As part of his discussion of the impact of
Jolene’s death, the prosecutor also made reference to a letter from one of Jolene’s
friends, who asked the circuit court to impose a life sentence.
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No. 2022AP1768-CR
¶9 The prosecutor next opined that the recommendation in the PSI for
twenty years’ initial confinement followed by ten years’ extended supervision
would be insufficient to protect the public because it underestimated the risk that
Medeiros would engage in future violence. The prosecutor pointed out that
twenty-five years of initial confinement would put Medeiros into his sixties when
he was released to extended supervision, by which age the prosecutor believed
Medeiros’s dangerousness would have decreased “significantly.” The prosecutor
concluded that a forty-year total sentence was justified to protect the public from
“somebody who had essentially executed his significant other because she
wouldn’t shut up.”
¶10 Medeiros asked the circuit court to follow the thirty-year total
sentence recommended in the PSI. Ultimately, the court rejected the
recommendations of both the parties and the PSI, and it imposed a sentence
consisting of thirty years’ initial confinement followed by twenty years’ extended
supervision.
¶11 Medeiros filed a postconviction motion seeking resentencing. He
alleged that his trial counsel provided ineffective assistance by failing to object to
several of the prosecutor’s comments as breaching the plea agreement. The circuit
court denied the motion following an evidentiary hearing, and Medeiros appeals.
DISCUSSION
¶12 A defendant raising a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel must
prove: (1) deficient performance by counsel; and (2) prejudice resulting from that
deficient performance. State v. Sholar, 2018 WI 53, ¶32, 381 Wis. 2d 560, 912
N.W.2d 89. We will not set aside the circuit court’s factual findings about what
actions counsel took or the reasons for them unless they are clearly erroneous. See
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No. 2022AP1768-CR
State v. Balliette, 2011 WI 79, ¶19, 336 Wis. 2d 358, 805 N.W.2d 334. However,
whether counsel’s conduct violated the constitutional standard for effective
assistance is ultimately a legal determination that this court decides de novo. Id.We need not address both elements of the test if the defendant fails to make a
sufficient showing on one of them. State v. Swinson, 2003 WI App 45, ¶58, 261
Wis. 2d 633, 660 N.W.2d 12.
¶13 In order to demonstrate deficient performance, a defendant must
overcome a presumption that counsel’s actions fell within a wide range of
professional conduct. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668, 689 (1984).
Counsel does not perform deficiently by failing to bring a meritless motion. State
v. Sanders, 2018 WI 51, ¶29, 381 Wis. 2d 522, 912 N.W.2d 16. Here, we
conclude that counsel did not perform deficiently by failing to object to a breach
of the plea agreement because the State did not, in fact, breach the plea agreement.
¶14 When a defendant agrees to enter a plea in reliance upon the State’s
promise to perform a future act, the defendant has a due process right to
fulfillment of the bargain. State v. Williams, 2002 WI 1, ¶37, 249 Wis. 2d 492,
637 N.W.2d 733. The State’s deviation from a plea agreement constitutes an
actionable breach, however, only when the deviation both “violates the terms of
the agreement and deprives the defendant of a material and substantial benefit for
which he or she bargained.” State v. Bowers, 2005 WI App 72, ¶9, 280 Wis. 2d
534, 696 N.W.2d 255. We will uphold factual findings regarding the terms of the
plea agreement and the prosecutor’s conduct unless they are clearly erroneous, but
we will independently determine whether the conduct constitutes a substantial and
material breach of the plea agreement. Williams, 249 Wis. 2d 492, ¶20.
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No. 2022AP1768-CR
¶15 The State’s failure to accurately present a negotiated sentencing
recommendation to the circuit court constitutes a violation of the plea agreement.
Id., ¶38. Additionally, the State “may not render less than a neutral recitation of
the terms of the plea agreement” by expressing reservations about it. State v.
Poole, 131 Wis. 2d 359, 364, 394 N.W.2d 909 (Ct. App. 1986). Nor may the State
make an end run around a plea agreement by “covertly convey[ing] to the [circuit]
court that a more severe sentence is warranted than recommended.” State v.
Hanson, 2000 WI App 10, ¶24, 232 Wis. 2d 291, 606 N.W.2d 278 (1999). At the
same time, public policy requires that the State be able to present relevant
information to the sentencing judge. Williams, 249 Wis. 2d 492, ¶43. Thus, a
prosecutor is free to discuss negative information about the defendant that has
come to light after the plea agreement and before sentencing, as long as the
prosecutor does not imply that the State would not have entered into the plea
agreement if it had known the additional information. Id., ¶50.
¶16 Here, Medeiros contends that the State undermined its negotiated
sentence recommendation by: (1) highlighting Medeiros’s prior threats to kill
Jolene, suggesting the homicide was intentional; (2) reminding the circuit court
that it could impose the sixty-year maximum; (3) noting that Medeiros would have
faced a mandatory life sentence if he had been convicted of the original charge at
trial; and (4) referring to the letter from one of Jolene’s friends requesting that the
court impose a life sentence. Medeiros argues that these comments by the
prosecutor collectively “cast doubt on both the legitimacy of the amended charge
as well as the appropriateness of the 40-year recommendation, thereby depriving
Medeiros of the benefit of his bargain.” We strongly disagree with Medeiros’s
characterizations of the prosecutor’s comments.
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No. 2022AP1768-CR
¶17 First, the prosecutor’s references to Medeiros’s repeated threats to
kill Jolene were consistent with a charge of first-degree reckless homicide.
First-degree reckless homicide occurs when a person “recklessly causes the death
of another human being under circumstances which show utter disregard for
human life.” WIS. STAT. § 940.02(1) (2021-22). The term “utter disregard for
human life” is interpreted consistently with previous interpretations of the
“depraved mind” element that it replaced. State v. Jensen, 2000 WI 84, ¶18, 236
Wis. 2d 521, 613 N.W.2d 170. As the Supreme Court of Wisconsin has
explained:
To constitute a depraved mind, more than a high degree of
negligence or recklessness must exist. The mind must not
only disregard the safety of another but be devoid of regard
for the life of another.… A depraved mind lacks a moral
sense, an appreciation of life, is unreasonable and lacks
judgment. A depraved mind has a general intent to do the
acts and the consciousness of the nature of the acts and
possible result but lacks the specific intent to do the harm.
State v. Weso, 60 Wis. 2d 404, 411-12, 210 N.W.2d 442 (1973). In analyzing
whether a defendant acted with utter disregard for human life, the fact finder
examines the totality of the circumstances, including the time before, during, and
after the crime. State v. Burris, 2011 WI 32, ¶¶38-39, 41, 333 Wis. 2d 87, 797
N.W.2d 430.
¶18 Placing the shooting in the context of a domestic abuse pattern in
which Medeiros made repeated threats against Jolene’s life underscored the fact
that Medeiros had acted with more than mere recklessness. The prior threats
tended to show that Medeiros acted with a general intent to fire the gun toward
Jolene without an appreciation for her life, even if he lacked a specific intent to
kill her, as he claimed. The prosecutor’s references to the prior threats therefore
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No. 2022AP1768-CR
supported his stated conclusion that Medeiros’s conduct evinced a “depraved
mind”—a term historically associated with first-degree reckless homicide, not
intentional homicide.
¶19 Second, we do not view the prosecutor’s reference to the
“possibility” that the circuit court could impose a sixty-year sentence as a
recommendation—either direct or covert—that the court do so. The prosecutor
was merely stating the maximum available penalty for the charge on which the
court was about to sentence Medeiros.
¶20 Third, the prosecutor’s reference to the mandatory life sentence
Medeiros would have received if he had been convicted of the original charge at
trial was plainly made in the context of describing Medeiros’s motivation for
entering into the plea agreement. The information was relevant to evaluating the
degree to which Medeiros truly accepted responsibility for his actions and, in turn,
his continuing need for rehabilitation.
¶21 Fourth, the prosecutor’s reference to a letter asking the circuit court
to impose a life sentence was made in the context of describing the impact that
Jolene’s death had on her family and friends. Merely referring to another person’s
recommendation does not breach a plea agreement, however. State v. Duckett,
2010 WI App 44, ¶10, 324 Wis. 2d 244, 781 N.W.2d 522. This was not a situation
such as that in Williams, where the prosecutor’s reference undercut the State’s
recommendation. See generally Williams, 249 Wis. 2d 492. Rather, the
prosecutor offered the information as relevant to the severity of the offense, in
support of its recommendation.
¶22 Moreover, the prosecutor did not merely cite the State’s negotiated
sentence recommendation—he actively advocated for it throughout his argument
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No. 2022AP1768-CR
to the circuit court. In particular, the prosecutor noted that the recommendation
had been endorsed by Jolene’s family, law enforcement, and other prosecutors,
and he characterized it as “just.” In this context, we do not view any of the
prosecutor’s comments as an invitation to impose a higher sentence than the one
the State was recommending. We therefore agree with the circuit court’s
conclusions that the State did not breach the plea agreement and that Medeiros has
no grounds for his claim of ineffective assistance of counsel.
By the Court.—Judgment and order affirmed.
This opinion will not be published. See WIS. STAT.
RULE 809.23(1)(b)5. (2021-22).
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