criminal-law evidence murder appeal wisconsin
Can a judge&#39;s decision to admit or not to admit &quot;character evidence&quot; under Wis. Stat. &#167; 904.04 be challenged (on appeal)?
<p>In the heated exchange between the judge and prosecutor (see 2nd video <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/11/11/us/kyle-rittenhouse-trial-thursday/index.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">here</a>) in the Rittenhouse trial, the judge says that he admitted &quot;90404&quot; evidence in other trials that the defendant was intending to shoot people on other occasions, but that he's not allowing it in this trial.</p>
<p>It seems to me that this kind of decision by a judge can basically make or break a case based on intent, outside of the extremely clear cut ones when the defendant says something like &quot;I'm going to kill Mr. XYZ [specifically] because I hate him [in particular]&quot;. &quot;90404&quot; seems to refer to Wis. Stat. § 904.04, which seems to be about &quot;character evidence&quot;. So, I'm curious if this kind of judge's decision to allow or not to allow such evidence can be appealed anywhere, or if his ruling is final under Wisconsin law.</p>

<p>Acquittals in criminal jury trials cannot be appealed (at least in a way that affects the outcome, Colorado and a few other states allow criminal appeals by the prosecution solely for the purposes of clarifying the law prospectively).</p>
<p>Interlocutory appeals (i.e. appeals before the case is over) by the prosecution are allowed for pre-trial rulings (e.g. suppression of evidence rulings in a pre-trial hearing), in criminal cases, but not for evidentiary rulings made in the midst of a jury trial (which is when jeopardy attaches for the purposes of the double jeopardy rule, which is what prevents acquittals from being retried).</p>
<p>An error in a ruling on an admission or rejection of evidence at trial may be appealed by a convicted defendant if the alleged misapplication of the evidence rule was an abuse of discretion by the judge, and was not &quot;harmless error&quot; (i.e. if as part of all errors made in the case there is a reasonable probability that it changed the outcome that the jury reached).</p>
