Disclaimer: The content on this site reflects the personal opinions and perspectives of the family and supporters of Tomitka Stewart. All summaries of hearings, motions, or testimony are paraphrased and should NOT be taken as verbatim transcripts. Unless otherwise cited from official public records (such as court filings or published news reports), statements here are opinion only and not statements of fact, legal findings, or conclusions. Nothing on this site should be interpreted as legal advice or official court documentation.
Andrew here, again.
In the last post, I shared a lot of information without much background. If you want the full details, you can scroll down and read that post. But here’s some context that might help.
The motion hearing that began on January 31st, 2025 happened because the State filed two important motions.
First, they asked the court to combine all of the cases into one, so there would be a single trial rather than multiple separate ones.
Second, they filed something called a forfeiture by wrongdoing motion. In simple terms, this motion asks the judge to allow Tomitka’s prior statements to be used at trial, since she can no longer testify. According to my communication with our Victim Advocate at the Milwaukee District Attorney’s office (and again, this is just my personal understanding of the correspondence—I’m not a lawyer), the State argued that Mr. Stewart’s actions are the reason Tomitka is not alive to testify. Because of that, the State argued Mr. Stewart gave up his right to confront her in court.
Naturally, the defense pushed back against allowing Tomitka’s statements into evidence. On the motion to join the cases, the defense also raised concerns that combining them could affect Mr. Stewart’s rights to testify—arguing that he may want to testify in one case but not the other.
Once again, this is based on my no-formal-legal-education background and my interpretation and opinion of what I think happened previously.
I hope this gives everyone a clearer picture of what the last post was about and why these motions mattered.