State v. Schmidt, 824 N.W.2d 839

Schmidt was convicted of first-degree intentional homicide and denied postconviction relief.
He argued the trial court barred any evidence supporting an adequate provocation defense before trial.
He also argued his right to counsel was violated at an in camera mitigation hearing.
Schmidt offered voluminous proffered evidence (written witness lists and in-camera testimony) but the court denied admitting evidence for provocation.
On appeal, the court affirmed the conviction and rejected both the provocation and right-to-counsel challenges.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Adequacy of provocation evidence to place defense in issue	Schmidt contends the total proffer satisfies some-evidence threshold	State argues the some-evidence test requires a threshold analysis of the proffered evidence as a whole	Not met; no issue for provocation
Right to counsel at in camera hearing	Schmidt claims lack of counsel at in camera proceeding violated rights	State argues hearing was nonadversarial and not a critical stage; counsel not required	Rejected; not a critical stage; counsel not required

Felton v. State, 110 Wis.2d 485 (Wis. 1983) (defines objective/subjective components of heat-of-passion provocation)
Head v. State, 255 Wis.2d 194 (Wis. 2002) (establishes burden-shifting for provocation and some evidence standard)
Muller v. State, 94 Wis.2d 450 (Wis. 1980) (illustrates objective provocation analysis requires immediacy and relevance of prior acts)
Williford v. State, 103 Wis.2d 98 (Wis. 1981) (prior acts alone or with immediate provocation may fail to show adequate provocation)
Lucynski v. State, 48 Wis.2d 232 (Wis. 1970) (consideration of prior provocation in objective inquiry)
State v. McClaren, 318 Wis.2d 739 (Wis. 2009) (in camera proceedings as a protective disclosure mechanism)