State ex rel. La Follette v. Raskin

In State ex rel. La Follette v. Raskin, 34 Wis. 2d 607, 614, 618, 150 N.W.2d 318 (1967), the Court addressed the statute that, at the time, established that pleas of not guilty and pleas of not guilty by reason of insanity were to be tried concurrently and not in a split trial. See also Wis. Stat. 957.11(1) (1967). In order for the statute to comply with due process, the court held that a defendant was entitled to a sequential order of proof on the issues of guilt and insanity in the trial so that inculpatory statements made in a compulsory mental examination would not be disclosed to the jury before it decided the issue of guilt. See Raskin, 34 Wis. 2d at 623-27. In 1969, the legislature codified the bifurcated trial procedure established in Raskin in Wis. Stat. 971.175. See Laws of 1969, ch. 255, 63. In 1987, the legislature replaced 971.175 with Wis. Stat. 971.165, expanding the rules to be followed in cases where the defendant pleads not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect, but maintaining the basic bifurcated trial procedure with its sequential order of proof as first established in Raskin. See 1987 Wis. Act 86; compare Wis. Stat. 971.175 (1985-86).