## Facts

- Waylon Picotte participated in a physical altercation in which the victim sustained a severe head injury and fell into a coma.
- Picotte was prosecuted for battery based on the assault and served a sentence.
- More than one year and one day after the injury, the victim died from complications attributable to the original brain injury.
- After the death, the State charged and obtained Picotte’s conviction for first-degree reckless homicide, party to a crime, based on the earlier assault.
- Picotte sought postconviction relief, arguing that Wisconsin’s common-law year-and-a-day rule barred homicide liability when death occurs more than one year and one day after the injury-causing act.

## Issues

1. Whether the common-law year-and-a-day rule is part of Wisconsin law.
2. Whether Wisconsin’s statutory scheme, including Wis. Stat. § 939.74(2) (no limitation period for certain homicide prosecutions), abrogated the year-and-a-day rule.
3. Whether the Wisconsin Supreme Court may judicially abrogate the year-and-a-day rule.
4. If abrogated, whether eliminating the rule may be applied to Picotte without violating due process limitations on retroactive judicial expansion of criminal liability.

## Decision

- The Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed the judgment of conviction and the order denying postconviction relief and remanded.
- The court held the year-and-a-day rule was part of Wisconsin common law preserved since statehood and had not been eliminated by Wis. Stat. § 939.74(2).
- The court held it had authority to abrogate the common-law rule and abolished the year-and-a-day rule for future cases.
- The court held due process barred applying the abolition retroactively to Picotte; therefore, the year-and-a-day rule barred his homicide conviction because the victim’s death occurred more than one year and one day after the injury.

## Legal Principles

- Wisconsin common law continues in force unless altered or suspended by the legislature; longstanding common-law doctrines remain applicable absent clear legislative displacement.
- A statute of limitations provision governing when prosecution may be commenced does not, without more, eliminate a substantive common-law causation limitation.
- A state supreme court may develop and abrogate common-law doctrines that have become unjustified under contemporary conditions.
- Due process constrains retroactive judicial changes that unexpectedly and indefensibly expand criminal liability or remove a substantive limitation or defense that existed at the time of the conduct.

## Conclusion

The court concluded that the year-and-a-day rule remained Wisconsin law at the time of Picotte’s conduct, was not abrogated by the homicide limitations statute, and—although no longer justified—could be abolished only prospectively; applying the new rule to Picotte would violate due process, so his homicide conviction was barred and reversed.


State v. Picotte, 261 Wis. 2d 249, 661 N.W.2d 381 (Wis. 2003)