And Justice for All the Great American Myth Part One: The Investigation and Trial

By V Wessel

This book takes a critical look at the Wisconsin Criminal "Justice" System by looking closely at the wrongful conviction of Wally Wessel IV, my son, through the state's own documentation. Before this case neither Wally nor I understood the depths that the state would go to convict an innocent person. I am wrote this book so that those who read it can come to their own conclusion as to the the state of the criminal system in Wisconsin. To accomplish this, the story of Wally’s conviction will be told through the transcripts of the police reports, hearings leading up to Wally’s trial as well as the trial itself. Each reader can judge for themselves if Wally was guilty of the crime of which he was convicted or the victim of a horribly unjust system. It is my belief that the people involved should be held accountable. My son died of suicide as a result of the time he spent in prison. Marsey's Law was just passed in Wisconsin which will make everything that the state did to Wally legal in all new cases once the state constitution is changed to reflect the new law.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716993992

Book preview

I have been trying to edit this book for months. I have printed it out. I have made notes, and redlined, and then thrown out my redlining again and again. There is nothing I can do to make this easier to read. There is nothing I can do to make the argument clearer without stripping the author of her voice. And the evidence is clear enough, anyway. At every step, the people involved either knew, or reasonably should have known, that Wally was innocent.

That did not change what any of them did – whether investigator, attorney, or judge. At all.

Right now, the United States has the largest prison population in the world. This is true by any measure you care to use. By actual size, and by percentage of the overall population, no other country comes close. You are far less likely to be incarcerated in China, Russia, or North Korea than you are in the USA.

This was not always true. At one point, every prisoner came with a cost. The State had to pay that cost, which meant that there was an incentive to not incarcerate unnecessarily. With the rise of the for-profit prison, though, every prisoner has meant a larger profit. Often, if there are not enough prisoners, the State must pay to make up for lost profit. This means that the State has an incentive to incarcerate even where it knows the accused is innocent. As of this writing, at least one US judge has been convicted of selling youths to the prison system in his state.

We also live at a time where the potential for police accountability is at an all-time high, but actual accountability is at an all-time low. Resistance to that accountability is intense. Coercion is used to prevent criticism. Society can correct this but acknowledging how far we are as a society from where we should be is the first, and perhaps most important, step towards doing so.

Wally Wessel IV was my nephew. The author, Vickie Wessel, is my sister.

The people who did this to them belong in prison.

Pass this book around. If their story prevents even one other person from having to go through the same shit, pirate this book like a mother fucker. Help turn this around before something similar happens to you, or to someone you love. If it already has – and the odds are far too high in the United States that this is the case – you are not alone. You are not fighting alone. You are not grieving alone.

Daniel J. Bishop, 2019

My son Wally was around the age of twelve when, during the course of a conversation, he said to me If I had to go to prison to make the world a better place I would go to prison.  It is something that I will never forget. I was so proud of him, he had so much compassion and love for his fellow man that he would be willing to give up his freedom to help others. He had a heart of gold. Little did we know what the future had to hold.

It is my hope that in some way this book will make a difference. It is the last thing that I can do for my son. Not only to clear his name in this matter, but also to hopefully affect change in a system that represents anything but justice to many in the state of Wisconsin. When my son came to me to ask my advice on his case, I simply told him If you are guilty to admit to it and take the plea deal, however if you are innocent stand up for your innocence.  Wally decided to stand up for his innocence, however neither of us understood how the system really worked and the extent it would go to convict an innocent person. Of course, this is my opinion and is not shared by the people involved in getting my son convicted. I am writing this book so that those who read it can come to their own opinion on the state of the justice system in the state of Wisconsin. To do this the story of Wally’s conviction will be told through the transcripts of the police reports, hearings leading up to Wally’s trial as well as the trial itself. Each reader can judge for themselves if Wally was guilty of the crime of which he was convicted or the victim of a horribly unjust system.

The Investigation

I do not remember the exact date in March of 2012 that the summons came to our home for Wally, but what I remember most distinctly was I worried. Wally had been getting into some trouble skipping school and smoking pot. Pretty much the normal rebellious teenage things with a one more serious charge of breaking into a car with some friends and stealing from that car. Please do not think that I am dismissing these charges as nothing because that is not the case. He made mistakes, admitted to his mistakes, was willing to pay for them and hoped to move on as many people do each and every day. That is exactly what he was doing when the summons came in the mail, working hard and getting his life back on track. He was still seventeen at the time. Because of the previous events I admit that I was worried. I read the summons and the criminal complaint. The charges were from a crime that had happened a little over a year ago. I looked at the date and checked to see if my son had been in the area on the date in question. He had. My heart sunk. However, after reading the criminal complaint and the statements from the witnesses I noticed that they did not really align with one another or what I had been told about that night. I decided to start my own investigation contacting the friends that I knew he had been with that day. If he were guilty, he would have to face the music as he was for his couple recent indiscretions. The information I was given from those friends also did not match what was on the complaint.

 Along with getting timelines from his friends, I remembered this day well. This was the first time that Wally had not come home for the night and I was out of my mind. I had spoken to him the night of March 15, 2011 after I had called around to his friends to find him. When I spoke to him, he stated that he would be home, but did not follow through. I was furious. I found him early in the morning at one of the witness’ home. I had spoken to the boy’s mother prior to picking him up letting her know how furious I was that she would not call me to see if Wally should have been there. She simply told me that sometime after 9 pm Wally showed up with DB with DB stating that Wally did not have a place to stay that night.

I told her that was not the case and she should have contacted me either way. I asked her not to tell him that I was coming to pick him up. I then drove to her home to pick up my son. When I got there, I found my son sleeping on a wood floor in his clothes. I woke him up and told him to put his shoes on so we could go home as I still had to get to work. Other than that, we did not really speak until we got into the car. Once in the car I started yelling telling him how worried I had been and that he needed to listen and come home. He said to me, Mom I didn’t do anything wrong, I just didn’t come home. I was incredibly angry at that statement. I could not understand how he could think that making me worry like that was not wrong and tried to make that clear to him. I had not noticed anything, nor had I been told anything, to suggest that he had done anything other than spend the night. I took him home and then went to work. I thought that the incident was over. How wrong I was.

You will be able to read a copy of the criminal complaint on the next three pages. It should be noted that this is the only discovery that Wally or I ever received. His court appointed attorney never showed either of us anything else that he received. He did admit in the appeal hearing that he did not show Wally all the discovery. I have provided pictures of the difference of what discovery was received as opposed to what discovery should have been provided to Wally on the pages following the criminal complaint.

To summarize, the only discovery given to Wally prior to the trial was the criminal complaint. A clear case for ineffective counsel. I was not able to make demands on the attorney to see the discovery, believe me I tried, because Wally was charged as an adult. In the state of Wisconsin, one is an adult at the age of 17 for all criminal offenses. Any time the attorney did not want to answer questions or speak to me, he would remind me that he did not have to talk to me at all even though Wally had given permission for me to see everything. Charging minors as adults provides a great service for the prosecution in that way. It is also important to note that it is the age of a person at the time the charges are brought, not at the time of an alleged incident.

I want to be perfectly clear that I do not hold any anger toward the two boys involved in this case. They were young, scared and in my opinion manipulated by a detective who wanted to convict Wally. I really am not sure what her motive was, but at some point, in my opinion, she should have started following the evidence instead trying to manipulate it.

Discovery received by Wally through the mail.

Discovery Wally should have received from his attorney.

Now that you have had a chance to read the complaint it is time to look at the written interview information collected by the police officers and detective Leah Meyer and note the differences. It is important to note that the information in the supplemental reports by Detective Meyer are what she wants to be known from the interviews, not necessarily all that was said in the interviews as we found out during the appeal process when the recordings were actually turned over. It should also be noted that these recordings were supposed to be turned over prior to the trial but were not which was a violation of Wally’s constitutional rights. When I found out that they existed after the trial, the state still did not want to turn them over for the appeal. Wally’s attorney had to get a court order to get something that Wally had a constitutional right to have PRIOR to his trial. The prosecution stated that they did not intentionally withhold the recordings, but I find that extremely hard to believe since I have documentation that the recordings were in the same locker (Locker 9) as other discovery that was turned over.  I also must question why they continued to withhold the recordings if they did not intentionally forget to turn them over prior to the trial. It may not seem like that big of a deal for the appeal, but when you are dealing with filing deadlines and the information needed to file an accurate brief is withheld it becomes difficult to make that argument. That is exactly what happened in Wally’s case. Information was withheld until after the brief had to be submitted. That will be addressed later in the book. On to the investigation. Each of you will have access to the same information that I now have and more importantly the information that Detective Meyer had in her procession at the time the charges were brought against Wally. I ask that you draw your own conclusions. The police, of course, will tell you that they do not bring charges, the district attorney does. The police do however recommend charges be brought against people. Once I have gone through the investigation, I will circle back to the difference between the interviews and the criminal complaint. Let us get to it.

Officer M.J. Gosh was the first offer to respond to the incident and wrote the Offense Report that is seen on the new three pages.

Important items to note in this report are as follows:

1.In the second paragraph Officer Gosh notes that the homeowner (KA) advised that her brother was the last person on the property on 3/15/2011. And that he called her on 3/16/2015 to tell her about the damage to the property.

2.In the third paragraph Officer Gosh notes his conversation with the KA’s brother that he had been at the home until approximately 1:30pm on 3/15/2011. Now here is an important aspect of the report. Officer Gosh notes that the brother advised that he COULD NOT STATE FOR SURE THAT THE DAMAGE HAD NOT BEEN DONE PRIOR TO 3/15/2011 but was quite sure he would have noticed the substantial amount of damage. This is never mentioned in the criminal complaint. Just simply that he had not observed the damage the previous day.

3.Some follow up questions that I think would have been important to ask after this statement would have been: Had you been inside the home on 3/15/2011? How long were you at the property on 3/15/2011 and what did you do? When was the last time you were on the property prior to 3/15/2011? Where the doors locked or was the house typically left