August 24, 2020 at 2:50 p.m.
Preliminary hearing in Guild case set for Oct. 22
Preliminary hearing in Guild case set for Oct. 22
By River News Staff-
At the preliminary hearing stage, the state must show "probable cause" that a crime was committed and that the defendant committed it.
Judge Kevin Klein of Price County moved the Guild case to the preliminary hearing stage Aug. 13, denying a defense motion challenging the sufficiency of the criminal complaint.
"The facts and circumstances alleged (in the complaint) do justify further proceedings," Klein ruled. "The complaint is minimally adequate based on common sense," the judge added, noting that he was not conducting a "hypertechnical evaluation of the central facts," nor was he determining the defendant's guilt or innocence or "assessing whether the state can prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt."
Guild, 40, is charged with one count of misconduct in office/failure to perform known duty. The case involves allegations he withheld certain records requested by this newspaper under the state's open records law and altered an official email.
The defense based its motion to dismiss on the grounds that responding to open records requests is not a mandatory, nondiscretionary, and ministerial duty of the office of city administrator. If the duty in question is not nondiscretionary and ministerial in nature, there can be no violation of the charged crime, no matter what conduct is alleged to have occurred, the defense has argued.
Klein, however, found that duties may be split into parts and that while initial parts may be discretionary, "once past those discretionary steps there is a mandatory duty."
If this were not the logic to be employed, Klein asserted, "then everything could always have a discretionary component' and the statute in question "would be rendered meaningless" because a person "could always say there is one more discretionary decision to make and one more discretionary decision to make after that."
Guild was arrested March 9 following a months-long investigation led by the Oneida County sheriff's department, with assistance from the Vilas, Price and Marathon county sheriff's offices and the Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation, that included the execution of search warrants at Rhinelander City Hall.
The Class I felony charge filed by the district attorney's office carries a maximum sentence of three years and six months in prison and/or a fine of up to $10,000.
Guild's contract with the city was terminated May 11 by unanimous vote of the City Council.
The city is in the preliminary stages of its search for a new administrator.
Comments:
You must login to comment.