## Facts

- Eric L. Loomis was charged in 2013 with multiple offenses related to a drive-by shooting, including reckless endangerment and firearm offenses.
- Under a plea agreement, Loomis pled guilty to attempting to flee or elude a traffic officer and operating a motor vehicle without the owner’s consent; other counts were dismissed but “read in” for sentencing.
- The Department of Corrections prepared a presentence investigation report that included a COMPAS risk assessment, rating Loomis “high risk” on several measures.
- The circuit court denied probation and imposed near-maximum sentences within the statutory range, citing traditional sentencing factors and also referencing the COMPAS results.
- Loomis sought postconviction relief, arguing that reliance on COMPAS violated due process because the tool is proprietary, uses group data and gender, and that the court improperly treated read-in charges as true.
- The circuit court denied relief, and the Wisconsin Supreme Court reviewed whether using COMPAS at sentencing violated due process.

## Issues

1. Whether a sentencing court’s consideration of a proprietary COMPAS risk assessment violates due process when the defendant cannot examine or challenge the tool’s methodology.
2. Whether using an actuarial tool based on group data violates due process by undermining individualized sentencing.
3. Whether COMPAS’s inclusion of gender as a factor violates due process by effectively sentencing based on gender.
4. Whether the sentencing court misused its discretion by treating read-in charges as true or giving them improper weight.

## Decision

- The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed the order denying postconviction relief and upheld Loomis’s sentence.
- The court held that a sentencing court’s consideration of COMPAS does not, by itself, violate due process when used properly as one factor among others.
- The court rejected the argument that the proprietary nature of COMPAS alone makes sentencing fundamentally unfair, emphasizing that Loomis could review and contest the scores and their application to him.
- The court held that use of group-based risk information does not violate individualized sentencing where the judge makes an individualized decision grounded in case-specific facts and traditional sentencing considerations.
- The court held that COMPAS’s consideration of gender did not violate due process where the sentencing judge did not impose punishment because of gender and used the assessment only in a limited, advisory way.
- The court held the circuit court did not erroneously exercise discretion in considering read-in charges consistent with Wisconsin practice.

## Legal Principles

- A risk assessment may be considered at sentencing without violating due process if it is not treated as determinative and the court independently applies traditional sentencing factors.
- The inability to access a proprietary algorithm’s internal methodology is not, by itself, a due process violation where the defendant can review the resulting scores and argue their relevance and accuracy as applied to the defendant.
- Because actuarial tools rely on group comparisons and can be misunderstood as precise, their use at sentencing must be accompanied by explicit limitations and cautions.
- COMPAS should not be used to decide whether to incarcerate an offender or to set sentence severity; it may be used to inform risk and needs within the court’s broader sentencing analysis.
- When COMPAS appears in a presentence report, courts must receive a written advisement warning about the tool’s limits, including its proprietary nature, potential disparities, possible error, and limits on validation for subpopulations.
- Read-in offenses may be considered at sentencing with the defendant’s consent as part of the overall sentencing picture, consistent with state law.

## Conclusion

The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld the use of COMPAS in sentencing as consistent with due process when it is non-determinative, used alongside traditional sentencing factors, and accompanied by written warnings describing its limits, while also reaffirming the permissibility of considering read-in charges at sentencing.


State v. Loomis, 881 N.W.2d 749 (Wis. 2016)