State v. Aaron J. Williams

COURT OF APPEALS
DECISION NOTICE
DATED AND FILED This opinion is subject to further editing. If
published, the official version will appear in
the bound volume of the Official Reports.
May 21, 2026
A party may file with the Supreme Court a
Samuel A. Christensen petition to review an adverse decision by the
Clerk of Court of Appeals Court of Appeals. See WIS. STAT. § 808.10
and RULE 809.62.

Appeal No. 2025AP492-CR Cir. Ct. No. 2023CF591

STATE OF WISCONSIN IN COURT OF APPEALS
DISTRICT IV

STATE OF WISCONSIN,

PLAINTIFF-RESPONDENT,

V.

AARON J. WILLIAMS,

DEFENDANT-APPELLANT.

APPEAL from a judgment of the circuit court for Wood County:
TIMOTHY S. GEBERT, Judge. Affirmed.

Before Graham, P.J., Blanchard, and Taylor, JJ.

Per curiam opinions may not be cited in any court of this state as precedent

or authority, except for the limited purposes specified in WIS. STAT. RULE 809.23(3).

¶1 PER CURIAM. Aaron J. Williams appeals a judgment of
conviction for operating with a prohibited alcohol concentration as a fifth offense.
No. 2025AP492-CR

Williams challenges the circuit court’s denial of his motion to suppress evidence
based on the arresting officer’s alleged failure to serve Williams with a copy of the
warrant authorizing a blood draw. Because we conclude the circuit court did not
err in this ruling, we affirm.

Background

¶2 At the hearing on Williams’s motion to suppress, Officer Hunter
Hintze testified as follows. On September 23, 2023, Hintze was working as a
patrol officer with Marshfield Police Department when he observed a truck driven
by Williams cross the center line multiple times. After Hintze stopped Williams
and observed his bloodshot eyes, slurred speech, and odor of intoxicants, and after
Williams admitted to consuming alcohol and refused to participate in field
sobriety testing, Hintze placed Williams under arrest for operating a vehicle under
the influence of an intoxicant. See WIS. STAT. § 346.63(1)(a) (2023-24).1

¶3 Williams then refused to consent to a blood draw. Hintze obtained a
search warrant authorizing a blood draw that was signed by the on-duty judge.
Hintze “presented the warrant to Mr. Williams” at the police station. He showed
Williams a copy of the warrant, but did not give Williams a copy of it because
Hintze “knew that [Williams] was going to be going down to the … [j]ail” and
would not be allowed to have “anything on [his] person.” Hintze did not capture
video of himself showing the warrant to Williams with his body camera because
Hintze forgot to turn his body camera back on after having turned it off to escort

1
All references to the Wisconsin Statutes are to the 2023-24 version unless otherwise
noted.

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No. 2025AP492-CR

Williams to the bathroom. The blood draw was subsequently performed without
issue.

¶4 On cross-examination, Hintze testified that he did not recall whether
Williams asked him for a copy of the search warrant. Hintze also could not recall
how far away from Williams he had been when he showed Williams the search
warrant or whether he had handed a copy of the warrant to Williams.

¶5 The circuit court denied Williams’s motion to suppress, rejecting
Williams’s argument that the warrant requirement was not fulfilled and that
suppression of Williams’s blood draw evidence was therefore required. The court
found that Hintze showed Williams the warrant, noting that Hintze’s testimony on
that point was not contradicted by other evidence. The court also determined that
there was no requirement for law enforcement to physically hand the warrant to
Williams in order to properly execute the warrant. Williams subsequently pled no
contest to operating with a prohibited alcohol concentration as a fifth offense and
was convicted of that offense.

Discussion

¶6 On appeal, Williams argues that the circuit court’s “finding that the
search warrant was ‘in fact’ shown to Mr. Williams is simply not true,” and that
display of the warrant from five feet away could not constitute “service.”
Williams further argues that, even if the warrant was shown to him, the officer’s
failure to physically hand Williams a copy of the warrant prior to conducting the
blood draw violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment, WIS. STAT. § 968.15,
and constitutional due process.

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No. 2025AP492-CR

¶7 This court reviews a circuit court’s order denying a motion to
suppress in two steps. State v. Roberson, 2019 WI 102, ¶66, 389 Wis. 2d 190,
935 N.W.2d 813. First, we uphold the circuit court’s findings of historical fact
unless they are clearly erroneous. Id. Second, we apply constitutional principles
to those facts independently. Id. Statutory interpretation also presents a question
of law that we review independently. State v. Popenhagen, 2008 WI 55, ¶32, 309
Wis. 2d 601, 749 N.W.2d 611.

¶8 We first address Williams’s argument that the record does not
support the circuit court’s finding that Hintze showed the warrant to him.
Williams contends that Hintze actually “admitted that he could not recall one way
or the other” whether he showed the warrant to Williams. He further asserts that
Hintze “could not dispute” being five feet away from Williams “at the time if he
did ‘show’ [the warrant] to [Williams],” because Hintze “could not ‘recall’ how
far away he was.”

¶9 A review of Hintze’s testimony shows that, in fact, Hintze testified
that he showed Williams a copy of the warrant and never qualified or retracted that
statement. In response to the prosecutor’s question of whether he showed the
warrant to Williams, Hintze answered, “Yes.” On cross-examination, when asked
if he “hand[ed Williams] a copy of the warrant prior to his blood being drawn,”
Hintze responded that “[Williams] was shown the warrant.” When asked the same
question again, Hintze testified that he “[did] not recall” whether he handed a copy
of the warrant to Williams. When asked whether Williams “ask[ed] … for a copy
of the search warrant,” Hintze replied that he could not “remember one way or the
other.” Thus, Hintze’s testimony was clear and consistent: Hintze showed the
warrant to Williams, but he did not remember whether he physically handed a
copy of the warrant to Williams or whether Williams asked him to do so.

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No. 2025AP492-CR

¶10 Regarding the distance from which Williams was shown the warrant,
defense counsel asked, “You showed it to him at a distance of five feet, correct?”
Hintze answered that he “didn’t know” and “did not measure” how far away he
was. Thus, there is no evidence in the record of the distance that Hintze and
Williams were apart from one another when the warrant was shown, only defense
counsel’s assertion that the distance was five feet. Williams’s contention that
Hintze could not dispute this “fact” is therefore misplaced. We agree with the
State that, based on the testimony discussed here, the circuit court’s finding that
Hintze showed the warrant to Williams is supported by the record and cannot be
overturned as clearly erroneous. See Lake Bluff Hous. Partners v. City of S.
Milwaukee, 2001 WI App 150, ¶18 & n.2, 246 Wis. 2d 785, 632 N.W.2d 485
(findings are not clearly erroneous when there is evidence in the record to support
them). In addition, by not filing a reply brief, Williams implicitly concedes this
factual argument. See Apple Hill Farms Dev., LLP v. Price, 2012 WI App 69,
¶14, 342 Wis. 2d 162, 816 N.W.2d 914 (stating that appellant’s failure to file a
brief in reply to respondent’s cited authority may be treated as a concession).

¶11 We turn to Williams’s argument that showing the warrant to
Williams was insufficient because the law requires a search warrant to be
physically served on the person being searched before it can be executed. First,
Williams argues that execution of the warrant in this case violated his rights under
the Fourth Amendment, which protects against unreasonable execution of a search
warrant. See United States v. Ramirez, 523 U.S. 65, 71 (1998). Williams relies
primarily on Bumper, a case in which the United States Supreme Court concluded
that a person’s consent to a search of her home was not freely and voluntarily
given, and therefore not valid, when the consent was given after police officers
falsely told her they had a search warrant. Bumper v. North Carolina, 391 U.S.

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No. 2025AP492-CR

543, 549-50 (1968). The Fourth Amendment violation was not in the officers’
failing to hand a warrant over to the person, but in their stating that they had a
warrant when they did not in order to coerce consent for a warrantless search. See
id. Bumper is simply not applicable to Williams’s case, in which Hintze had a
valid search warrant and did not need Williams’s consent for a blood draw.

¶12 The State, on the other hand, points to cases recognizing that under
certain circumstances, the Fourth Amendment’s reasonableness standard may be
met even when law enforcement does not show, let alone physically hand, a
warrant to the person whose property or person is being searched before executing
the warrant. In Groh v. Ramirez, 540 U.S. 551, 562 n.5 (2004), the United States
Supreme Court acknowledged that the Fourth Amendment does not always
“require[] the executing officer to serve the warrant on the owner before
commencing the search,” noting that in conducting some searches, such as
surreptitious wiretaps or searches of abandoned buildings, “it will be impracticable
or imprudent for the officers to show the warrant in advance.”

¶13 Similarly, in State v. Sveum, our state supreme court rejected the
argument that officers’ execution of a warrant authorizing GPS tracking of a
vehicle was unreasonable when they failed to provide notice of the warrant to the
vehicle’s owner prior to installing the tracking device. State v. Sveum, 2010 WI
92, ¶¶61-62, 328 Wis. 2d 369, 787 N.W.2d 317. Citing Groh and Grubbs, the
court pointed out “the ‘absence of a constitutional requirement that the warrant be
exhibited at the outset of the search.’” Sveum, 328 Wis. 2d 369, ¶62 (quoting
United States v. Grubbs, 547 U.S. 90, 99 (2006)).

¶14 Simply put, there is no rigid Fourth Amendment requirement that a
warrant be physically given to the subject of a search to comply with the Fourth

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No. 2025AP492-CR

Amendment’s standard of reasonable execution. Williams has not demonstrated
that drawing his blood after showing him the warrant constituted unreasonable
execution of the warrant under the circumstances of his case.

¶15 Next, Williams argues that WIS. STAT. § 968.15(1), which provides
that “[a] search warrant must be executed and returned not more than 5 days after
the date of issuance,” requires physical service of a warrant for it to be “executed.”
In arguing that the statute imposes a physical service requirement, Williams relies
exclusively on an explanatory note from the Wisconsin Judicial Council. The note
states:

Current law has no provision on the execution of a search
warrant. It is believed that there should be some reasonable
period in which a warrant should be executed and returned.
Experience teaches that normally search warrants have
little effect if they are not promptly served. They should
not be held by an officer and served at [the officer’s] whim.
Various states have adopted times different than the federal
requirement in F.R.Cr.P. 41(d) which has a 10-day
limitation. The Council, after consultation with law
enforcement authorities, felt 5 days was a reasonable
period.

Judicial Council Note, 1969, WIS. STAT. § 968.15.

¶16 This note is insufficient to import a physical service requirement into
the statutory text. The note provides that, under the statute, a warrant must be
“executed” within five days. We have interpreted the term “execution” in the
context of WIS. STAT. § 968.15 before, and we have concluded that it means the
“search for and seizure of the items designated in the warrant.” State v.
Drachenberg, 2023 WI App 61, ¶¶25, 32, 409 Wis. 2d 738, 998 N.W.2d 566. We
noted that this definition is consistent with the ordinary understanding of the term
in context, the language in closely related statutes, and the “evident purposes of ...
§ 968.15,” which, as shown by the note on which Williams relies, includes

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No. 2025AP492-CR

avoidance of unreasonable delay in carrying out searches pursuant to validly
issued warrants. Id., ¶¶18-23, 32. Williams makes no attempt to show that
physical service should be read into the term “execute” as an additional required
element based on the statutory text, the term’s ordinary meaning, or any other tool
of statutory interpretation. See State ex rel. Kalal v. Circuit Ct. for Dane Cnty.,
2004 WI 58, ¶¶45-51, 271 Wis. 2d 633, 681 N.W.2d 110. Williams’s statutory
argument therefore fails.

¶17 Finally, Williams argues that due process requires physical service
of a search warrant based on the concepts of notice and fundamental fairness.
None of his cited authority is persuasive. In Erotomic, for example, this court
concluded that the defendants were not deprived of due process when the State
complied with a statutorily authorized means of providing notice of an action
commenced against them rather than serving a summons. State v. Erotomic, 87
Wis. 2d 536, 540, 275 N.W.2d 160 (Ct. App. 1979). Here, as discussed above,
there is no statutory requirement for physical service (or advance notice) of a
search warrant. Courts have repeatedly recognized that, under some
circumstances, a search pursuant to a valid warrant may be executed without
notice to the person whose person or property is being searched. But in this case,
Williams has presented no evidence that he was not given notice of the warrant
when Hintze showed it to him before the blood draw.

¶18 Nor does failing to hand a person a search warrant “defeat[] the
whole purpose of having a warrant in the first place,” as Williams asserts. The
purposes of a warrant authorizing a blood draw are to “ensure that a search is not
carried out unless a neutral magistrate makes an independent determination that
there is probable cause to believe that evidence will be found,” and to “limit[] the
intrusion on privacy by specifying the scope of the search.” Birchfield v. North

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No. 2025AP492-CR

Dakota, 579 U.S. 438, 469 (2016). Here, those purposes were served when Hintze
obtained the warrant from a neutral magistrate, and the warrant limited the scope
of the authorized search. Fundamental fairness does not also require that Williams
be physically served with the warrant prior to the blood draw under the facts
presented here.

¶19 Williams’s failure to address the State’s case law and arguments in a
reply constitutes an implicit concession on these legal arguments. See Apple Hill
Farms Dev., 342 Wis. 2d 162, ¶14.

¶20 In sum, Williams has not demonstrated clear error in the circuit
court’s finding that an officer showed him the search warrant authorizing a blood
draw prior to executing that warrant, and we are not persuaded that either
constitutional standards or WIS. STAT. § 968.15 impose a requirement for physical
service of the warrant under these circumstances. We affirm.

By the Court.—Judgment affirmed.

This opinion will not be published. See WIS. STAT.
RULE 809.23(1)(b)5.

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