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Attorneys for Victoria Lee Trappe, Anthony Michael Welda and Timothy Robert Wagner argued they didn’t seek out the victims and prosecutors piled on charges.
The 4th District Court of Appeals disagreed, saying Trappe singled out at least one black person, Wagner likely targeted two women in the group and state statutes clearly delineate punishment both for an act and for picking out a victim based on race.
According to the opinion, police responded to a Janesville house where they found Trappe.
She complained black people were on her property without permission, referring to them with a racial slur. The officer told her to watch her language and go back on her porch. She continued to yell racial slurs at two black men at the end of the driveway as she walked away.
Welda and Wagner were at the house, too. Wagner told police he was explaining to friends how black people had damaged his truck, referring to them with a racial slur. The officer told him not to use the slur, and he replied he would use it whenever he liked.
Welda said two black girls overheard them, and then two black men confronted them. During the argument Wagner waved a Confederate flag at the men.
One of the black men, Fredrick Lockhart, told police he was visiting a friend when his daughter and daughter-in-law came into the house saying someone had used racial slurs against them.
Lockhart and his friend confronted Trappe, Welda and Wagner at Trappe’s home.
He told police they asked them why they were calling the women racial slurs. Lockhart said Trappe called him a racial slur and told him to get off her property, again using a racial slur.
Trappe, Welda and Wagner were charged with disorderly conduct with a hate crime enhancer, but Rock County Circuit Judge James P. Daley threw out the enhancer.
The state appealed.
Trappe and Wagner argued on appeal the enhancer statutes require proof a defendant intentionally selected a victim because of race.
Trappe argued she never interacted with the black women, didn’t talk to the black men until she heard them outside her house and never went looking for them. Wagner argued he didn’t select the black women as targets, saying they simply overheard his remarks.
The court said Trappe selected Lockhart when she used racial slurs against him. As for Wagner, the court said one of the black men reported one of the women said Welda and Wagner specifically used a racial slur against them as they walked by and it was reasonable to believe Wagner selected them because of their race.
The court went on to say there’s a difference between disorderly conduct and the hate crime enhancer. Welda offered no evidence the Legislature didn’t intend to allow cumulative punishments in such a case, the court said.
The case now returns to circuit court. Trappe, Welda and Wagner all have pleaded not guilty.
Trappe’s attorney, Anthony Kraujalis, said he wasn’t sure what he would do next.
“(The ruling) is what it is,” he said. “There were elements of the law that we think didn’t apply in our case and the court of appeals says it applies.”
Welda and Wagner’s attorneys didn’t immediately return messages. Messages left at the Rock County District Attorney’s office, which handled the appeal for the state, also weren’t immediately returned.
