WHITEHALL — Todd Gieck returns to court Wednesday for sentencing on three convictions. The charged statutes create a conditional maximum of 103½ years. Circuit Judge Thomas W. Clark’s task is to decide the actual terms of initial confinement and extended supervision.

The Pioneer estimates that Judge Clark is most likely to impose 30 to 40 years of initial confinement (time in prison), followed by 15 to 20 years of extended supervision in the community. The estimate assumes the two lesser firearm sentences run concurrently with the homicide sentence. If one number is required, this analysis uses 35 years of initial confinement and 20 years of extended supervision, with the lesser counts concurrent.

Initial confinement is served in full under Wisconsin’s bifurcated-sentence law: no parole and no good-time reduction apply.

That is an editorial forecast, not a recommendation from the prosecution, defense or presentence writer. It is not statistical. Confidence is moderate to low.

The docket explains the uncertainty. The presentence investigation report is confidential, and no prosecution or defense recommendation is identified in the public event labels. Two Aug. 6 entries are called “Letters/correspondence.” A separate entry is a victim restitution request. CCAP does not show their contents, and the Pioneer did not obtain them. The parties’ numbers may first become public in court.

Gieck, 64, is scheduled for sentencing at 1 p.m. Aug. 12 in Courtroom 1. CCAP lists Judge Clark, who presided over the trial, as the judge. Judge Rian W. Radtke handled the June 2024 initial appearance and bond hearing, then recused. Court Commissioner William P. Nemer had handled the warrantless-arrest probable-cause review the day before that appearance.

What the complaint adds

Deputies were dispatched at about 8:32 p.m. May 15, 2024, to what looked at first like a one-car crash near U.S. Highway 53 and County Road TT in the Town of Gale, according to the eight-page criminal complaint. Kyle Dahl, 36, was found badly injured in his car and flown to Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center. There, the complaint says, hospital staff later reported that the head wound appeared to be from a gunshot. Dahl died at the hospital.

The complaint calls Dahl 37. His obituary says he was 36, as does the sheriff’s release. The Pioneer uses 36. The complaint and the separate probable-cause narrative place the scene in the Town of Gale; the sheriff’s June 18 release called it the Town of Ettrick. The records agree on the highway and County Road TT location.

The complaint is a charging document: it tells readers what the State alleged and summarizes what witnesses and investigators reported. It is not a trial transcript, and the guilty verdicts do not turn every sentence in it into a separate jury finding.

The complaint says a May 17 autopsy found that Dahl died from a gunshot wound above his right eye. The pathologist described a bullet that had first passed through another object. And damage near the rear passenger window, a detective said, was consistent with a projectile entering the car from outside.

The complaint describes two video sources. It says Frenchville Trailers footage showed a red car pass Dahl’s car on the right as both traveled north; Dahl’s car then followed, and about a minute later the red car returned south. It says Woychik-residence footage showed the red car stop parallel to the highway at the driveway, Dahl’s vehicle pass without stopping or slowing, and the red car rapidly turn south. The probable-cause supplement describes semi dash-camera footage showing a red Crown Victoria ahead of Dahl’s vehicle, signaling right and pulling to the side near the crash location. The Pioneer did not independently view the recordings.

The complaint attributes the central passenger account to Dustin Rommel. Rommel told investigators that Gieck caught up to Dahl’s slow-moving car, passed it and stopped at the driveway. As Dahl passed, Rommel said he heard a pistol rack, Gieck say something like “watch this,” a shot and breaking glass. Rommel said Dahl’s car left the road and Gieck drove the other way rather than check on him.

Jim Newman, the complaint also says, told investigators that Gieck left a handgun and shotgun at Newman’s home on May 18. Police collected a Springfield XDM .40-caliber pistol and a shotgun. On May 22, the complaint says, an ATF explosives-detection dog helped officers find a .40-caliber casing in gravel near the driveway.

The shared caliber is not a ballistic identification. Neither the complaint nor the probable-cause record says a laboratory matched the recovered pistol, the casing and the fatal projectile. Trempealeau County Times reporting on the preliminary hearing said testing was incomplete at that point. The Pioneer found no later public laboratory report that established a match.

The complaint says a detective reviewed a June 2 jail call in which Gieck called the shooting an “accidental discharge.” It says Gieck acknowledged pulling into the driveway and chambering a round before the gun went off. The Pioneer did not listen to the call or obtain a certified transcript.

The defense maintained that the discharge was accidental. Gieck exercised his right not to testify. The defense called a Winona police officer and rested, according to the April 28 and 29 CCAP entries. On April 29, the jury found Gieck guilty of first-degree reckless homicide, intentionally discharging a firearm from a vehicle at or toward another vehicle, and possessing a firearm after an out-of-state felony conviction.

The homicide conviction is not intentional murder. First-degree reckless homicide required the jury to find that Gieck recklessly caused Dahl’s death under circumstances showing utter disregard for human life.

The earlier probable-cause ruling

The three-page Probable Cause Statement and Judicial Determination needs careful reading because its count numbers are not the final count numbers.

Count 2 on the arrest form was possession of a firearm by an out-of-state felon. The court did not find probable cause on that arrest-form count, Commissioner Nemer wrote, because the attached statement contained no information about felony status. The later complaint supplied allegations based on NCIC and California corrections records, placed felon possession at final Count 3 and charged firearm discharge as final Count 2. The jury ultimately convicted Gieck of the final felon-possession count.

The handwritten note was a June 2024 custody-stage decision on the information then presented. It was not an acquittal, a ruling on the later complaint or a decision about the evidence at trial.

How the maximum reaches 103½ years

The complaint alleges a dangerous-weapon enhancer on the homicide and felony-based repeater enhancers on all three counts. It says NCIC and California corrections records indicated a March 24, 2016, California felony conviction for Assault by Prisoner under Cal. Penal Code § 4501(b) and, on information and belief, that Gieck remained confined until his release to post-release supervision on Nov. 24, 2020.

Wisconsin’s five-year repeater window excludes qualifying time spent in actual confinement. On the complaint’s allegations, the nonconfinement period from Nov. 24, 2020, to the May 15, 2024, offense was less than five years.

The Pioneer did not obtain the California judgment or custody record. The complaint shows what the State pleaded. Under Wis. Stat. § 973.12, however, the qualifying prior convictions must be admitted by the defendant or proved by the State. The public file reviewed for this story does not show whether Gieck admitted the repeater facts, whether the State proved a qualifying predicate and the tolling facts, or whether every enhancer was formally established.

Here is the conditional arithmetic:

  • First-degree reckless homicide is a Class B felony with a 60-year base maximum. The charged weapon and repeater increases would produce a 71-year ceiling: 51 years of initial confinement and 20 years of extended supervision.
  • Discharging a firearm from a vehicle is a Class F felony with a 12½-year base maximum. The charged repeater increase would produce an 18½-year ceiling: 13½ years of initial confinement and five years of extended supervision.
  • Felon in possession is a Class G felony with a 10-year base maximum. The charged repeater increase would produce a 14-year ceiling: nine years of initial confinement and five years of extended supervision.

If Judge Clark imposed every conditional maximum one after another, the aggregate would be 103½ years: 73½ years of initial confinement and 30 years of extended supervision. If no enhancer were formally established, the same all-consecutive arithmetic would total 82½ years: 52½ years of initial confinement and 30 years of extended supervision. The calculation follows Wisconsin’s felony classifications, repeater law, dangerous-weapon provision and bifurcated-sentence rules.

That total is a conditional charged ceiling, not a forecast. Under Wis. Stat. § 973.15, Judge Clark may run the terms together or back to back. Because all three convictions arose from the same May 15 episode, the defense may ask Judge Clark to run the terms concurrently. Judge Clark is not required to do so.

Two old firearm minimums do not apply. Wis. Stat. § 939.6195 says it does not govern sentences imposed after July 1, 2022. The former minimum in Wis. Stat. § 941.29(4m) does not apply after July 1, 2020. No current provision found in this review creates a mandatory three-year or four-year confinement floor for Wednesday’s sentence.

Wisconsin’s general probation statute does not categorically bar probation for these convictions. On this record, probation is a legal abstraction, not a realistic result. The jury found that Gieck caused a death with utter disregard for human life and committed two additional firearm crimes.

Why 30 to 40 years is the central range

The homicide conviction will account for most of any prison term. The firearm convictions matter most if Judge Clark orders either sentence to run consecutively.

The aggravating record is substantial. Dahl died at 36. The jury found utter disregard for human life. It also found that Gieck fired from a vehicle and possessed a gun despite an out-of-state felony conviction. The complaint attributes to witnesses a sequence in which Gieck followed and passed Dahl’s vehicle, Rommel heard a gun rack and Gieck speak before the shot, and Gieck drove away.

The public file says far less about mitigation. Gieck is 64, and the conviction was for reckless rather than intentional homicide. The court may also hear about his health, treatment needs, conduct in custody, family support, remorse or account to the presentence writer. None was available in the sources reviewed.

At his age, even the bottom of the forecast could keep Gieck in prison into his 90s after any sentence credit the court determines is due. Public custody dates do not establish the correct legal credit, so the Pioneer is not estimating it.

The 30-to-40-year range assumes the two firearm terms run concurrently. A consecutive term, especially on the prohibited-possession count, could move the confinement total above the range — and because consecutive sentences also stack their supervision terms, it would push extended supervision above 15 to 20 years as well. A party recommendation, PSI assessment or health information first disclosed Wednesday could move the estimate in either direction.

The point estimate of 35 years of initial confinement and 20 years of extended supervision states the forecast plainly. It is not a claim that Judge Clark has chosen those numbers.

Within the range, this analysis treats 30 to 35 years as the most likely band. The range also has a lower tail: in Medeiros, Judge Clark exceeded the State’s request by five years, so party recommendations in the low 20s on Wednesday could support a term in the high 20s, below this range.

What Judge Clark’s record can tell us

Wisconsin judges must identify the sentence’s objectives, describe the facts relevant to those objectives and explain how each component advances them. In State v. Gallion, the Wisconsin Supreme Court tied those duties to a limiting principle.

“In each case, the sentence imposed shall ‘call for the minimum amount of custody or confinement which is consistent with the protection of the public, the gravity of the offense and the rehabilitative needs of the defendant.’”

State v. Gallion, 2004 WI 42, ¶ 44 (quoting McCleary v. State, 49 Wis. 2d 263, 182 N.W.2d 512 (1971))

Judge Clark served as Buffalo County district attorney before he was elected in 2018, according to his official Wisconsin judiciary biography. Biography alone does not predict a sentence.

Two public appellate records offer only a rough comparison.

In State v. Medeiros, Jonathan Medeiros pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of first-degree reckless homicide after shooting his partner with a shotgun. The State recommended 25 years of initial confinement and 15 years of extended supervision; the PSI recommended 20 years and 10 years, and the defense adopted the PSI’s numbers. Judge Clark imposed 30 years of initial confinement and 20 years of extended supervision.

In State v. Underland, the defendant entered a no-contest plea to second-degree recklessly endangering safety with a dangerous weapon, as an act of domestic abuse and as a repeater. The PSI recommended 4½ to 5½ years of initial confinement and two to three years of extended supervision. The State capped its initial-confinement request at the PSI range. Judge Clark imposed eight years of initial confinement and five years of extended supervision.

Both records are unpublished and nonprecedential. Their facts, criminal histories and mitigation differ from Gieck’s. Two cases cannot establish a general tendency. Both are public only because they were appealed, and appealed sentences are not a representative sample of any judge’s work. They show only that Judge Clark imposed more than the recommendations described in those particular records. They do not prove that he will do so Wednesday.

The public record on Gieck’s history

Before trial, Judge Clark ruled that if Gieck testified, he would have to acknowledge an impeachment number of 11 under Wisconsin’s rule for prior convictions and delinquency adjudications. The docket does not identify the 11 items, their dates, jurisdictions or grades, or whether each was an adult conviction. It is not a verified list of 11 felonies.

The complaint’s California allegation is more specific. It identifies the 2016 assault-by-prisoner felony and a 2020 release date. It still is not the California judgment.

Gieck also has a pending Jackson County case. CCAP case 2024CF000092 lists charges of firearm possession after an out-of-state felony and THC possession as a second or subsequent offense. The alleged conduct occurred May 18, 2024. Gieck pleaded not guilty. At the research cutoff, the docket showed no disposition or future hearing.

Those charges are allegations, not convictions, and Gieck is presumed innocent in that case. Their possible penalties are not part of the Trempealeau maximum. Under State v. Leitner, a sentencing judge may consider reliable information about uncharged or unproven conduct when evaluating character. A pending charge alone does not prove the conduct beneath it.

What to watch Wednesday

The State, defense and presentence writer may propose different terms. None was identifiable in the public record, so the source of each number will matter.

Gieck will have a statutory opportunity to address the court. If he speaks, Judge Clark may evaluate what he says, including any expression of remorse. The Fifth Amendment privilege against compelled self-incrimination continues through sentencing, and the court may not rely on compelled statements.

If Judge Clark imposes prison terms, he should announce a separate term of initial confinement and extended supervision on each count, say whether the firearm terms run concurrently or consecutively, and state sentence credit.

The homicide sentence will be the largest number. A term of 35 years of initial confinement and 20 years of extended supervision, with concurrent firearm sentences, matches this analysis’s point estimate. A consecutive possession term would show that Judge Clark considers the prohibited gun possession deserving of punishment beyond the homicide sentence.

The Pioneer estimate remains 30 to 40 years of initial confinement and 15 to 20 years of extended supervision, with the lesser counts concurrent. The 103½-year ceiling shows what the charged statutes permit under stated assumptions. Wednesday’s count-by-count sentence will show what Judge Clark believes is necessary.

The documents

Court file: The Pioneer reviewed the public CCAP event histories in Trempealeau County case 2024CF000126 and Jackson County case 2024CF000092. Both official case feeds were rechecked at 11:37 a.m. CDT Aug. 11. The Trempealeau feed showed no update after Aug. 6; the Jackson feed showed no update after July 20. CCAP identifies events and filing labels but does not display the confidential PSI, the underlying Aug. 6 documents or any recommendation not identified in the public event labels.

Source conflicts: The complaint says Dahl was 37; his obituary and the sheriff say 36. The court papers say Town of Gale; the sheriff release says Town of Ettrick. The probable-cause supplement says Dahl died May 16; his obituary says May 15. The Pioneer used the obituary for age, used the court papers for municipality and did not assign a date of death in the incident account.

Law and comparison cases: The maximum calculation uses the linked Wisconsin statutes. The sentencing analysis draws on State v. Gallion, 2004 WI 42, 270 Wis. 2d 535, 678 N.W.2d 197; State v. Leitner, 2002 WI 77, 253 Wis. 2d 449, 646 N.W.2d 341; State v. Alexander, 2015 WI 6, 360 Wis. 2d 292, 858 N.W.2d 662; State v. Medeiros, No. 2022AP1768-CR (Wis. Ct. App. Dec. 12, 2023) (per curiam); and State v. Underland, No. 2022AP626-CRNM (Wis. Ct. App. Jan. 30, 2024). The 103½-year total is the Pioneer’s conditional calculation. The 30-to-40-year range is an editorial judgment, not an empirical probability. Medeiros and Underland are unpublished and nonprecedential.