State v. Williams
Annotate this CaseThis case involved Wis. Stat. 346.65(2)(am)(6), the penalty statute for operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated (OWI) as the seventh, eighth, or ninth offense. The statute states that the “confinement portion of a bifurcated sentence impose on the person…shall be not less than 3 years.” At issue before the Supreme Court was whether section 346.65(2)(am)(6) requires a sentencing court to impose a bifurcated sentence. In the underlying OWI case, Defendant pled guilty to his seventh OWI offense and asked the circuit court to place him on probation. The court determined that section 346.65(2)(am)(6) requires imposition of a bifurcated sentence with at least three years of initial confinement. The court of appeals reversed, concluding that the circuit court was mistaken in believing that section 346.65(2)(am)(6) imposes a mandatory minimum period of initial confinement. The Supreme Court reversed the court of appeals, holding that section 346.65(2)(am)(6) requires sentencing courts to impose a bifurcated sentence with at least three years of initial confinement for a seventh, eighth, or ninth OWI offense.
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