Strangulation and Suffocation Charges in Wisconsin: Why No Visible Injury Still Means a Felony

Strangulation charges in Wisconsin do not require a visible injury. Wis. Stat. § 940.235 makes it a felony to intentionally impede another person’s breathing or blood circulation by applying pressure on the throat or neck, or by blocking the nose or mouth. No bruising. No marks on the neck. No loss of consciousness. The State does not have to prove any of it.

That surprises almost everyone who gets arrested for it. People expect the case to collapse when the photographs come back clean, and it usually does not. The statute is written around what the hands did, not around what the skin shows an hour later.

Is strangulation a felony in Wisconsin?

Yes. Strangulation and suffocation is always a felony in Wisconsin, and there is no misdemeanor version of the offense. A first charge is a Class H felony. It rises to a Class G felony when the person has a prior conviction under the same statute or a prior conviction for a violent crime listed by statute.

The offense is relatively young. Wisconsin created it through 2007 Wisconsin Act 127, effective April 4, 2008. Before that, this conduct was typically charged as battery or disorderly conduct, often as a misdemeanor. Key points:

Two tiers only, Class H and Class G. There is no aggravated Class F version in Wisconsin, despite material written for other states.
The same act expanded Wisconsin’s dangerous weapon definition to cover a ligature used on the throat, neck, nose, or mouth.
The prior conviction that triggers the Class G tier is an element the jury must find, not a sentencing note.

Can you be charged with strangulation if there are no marks or injuries?

Yes. Wisconsin’s strangulation statute requires proof that breathing or blood circulation was impeded, not proof of injury. A conviction is possible with no bruising, no redness, and no medical treatment. Wisconsin law separately directs police and prosecutors that the absence of visible injury cannot be the only reason to decline an arrest or a charge.

The medical literature is why the statute reads this way. In a review of 300 attempted strangulation cases submitted to the San Diego City Attorney’s Office:

150 of 300 surviving victims, exactly half, had no visible markings to the neck.
Another 35 percent had injuries the reviewers described as very minor.
The authors concluded the seriousness of these assaults was routinely missed as a result.

Wisconsin wrote that finding into policy. Under Wis. Stat. § 968.075(3)(a)1.d., every law enforcement agency’s domestic abuse policy must state that a decision not to arrest may not rest solely on the absence of visible indications of injury. Section 968.075(7)(a)1. imposes the same instruction on district attorney charging policies. Clean photographs are still evidence, and they can matter a great deal next to inconsistencies in the account. They are not the case-ender people often assume.

What does the State have to prove in a strangulation case?

Two elements. Under Wisconsin’s pattern jury instruction, the State must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant impeded the normal breathing or circulation of blood by applying pressure on the throat or neck or by blocking the nose or mouth, and that the defendant did so intentionally.

Wisconsin Criminal Jury Instruction 1255 defines intentionally narrowly: the defendant must have acted with the mental purpose to impede breathing or circulation. Hands that end up near a neck during a struggle are not automatically hands that acted with that purpose. What gets contested:

Where the contact landed, how long it lasted, and whether both people were physically engaged.
Whether the description shifted between the 911 call, the statement at the scene, and a later recorded interview.
Whether the accused person has injuries of their own that the report does not account for.
Whether either party acted in self-defense, which Wisconsin law requires officers to weigh when identifying the predominant aggressor.

What are the penalties for strangulation charges in Wisconsin?

A Class H felony carries up to 6 years and a fine of up to $10,000. A Class G felony carries up to 10 years and a fine of up to $25,000. Wisconsin splits every felony sentence into prison time and supervision, so actual maximum confinement is lower than those headline numbers.

Those maximums come from Wis. Stat. § 939.50(3). What they mean in practice comes from Wis. Stat. § 973.01, and there is a consequence here that most published summaries leave out:

Class H: confinement may not exceed 3 years, extended supervision may not exceed 3 years.
Class G: confinement may not exceed 5 years, extended supervision may not exceed 5 years.
No earned release program. Anyone convicted of a chapter 940 crime is statutorily excluded, and strangulation sits in chapter 940.
No challenge incarceration program, excluded on the same basis.
No reduction for good behavior, and no parole eligibility on a bifurcated sentence.
A mandatory $100 domestic abuse surcharge under Stat. § 973.055(1), which names § 940.235 on its list.

Those two excluded programs are the routes that let some Wisconsin prisoners convert remaining confinement into supervision. Neither is available here, which means a term of confinement on this charge is served as imposed. The surcharge also matters beyond the money: under Wis. Stat. § 939.621, two or more convictions carrying that surcharge within ten years can add up to 2 years to the maximum term on a later case.

What happens in the first 72 hours after a domestic abuse arrest in Wisconsin?

Arrest becomes mandatory when an officer has reasonable grounds to believe a person committed domestic abuse amounting to a crime and continued abuse appears likely, there is evidence of physical injury, or the person is the predominant aggressor. That is why an arrest happens even when the person who called asks police not to make one. What the 72-hour rule actually requires:

No contact directly, and no contact through anyone else. The only exceptions are law enforcement and the attorneys for each side.
Asking a relative or friend to pass along a message is a violation.
An intentional violation carries a fine of up to $10,000 or up to 9 months, or both, and arrest for the violation is itself mandatory.
The alleged victim may lift the requirement, but only by signing a written waiver with the law enforcement agency.
The arrested person must sign an acknowledgment before release. Refusing to sign means not being released.

The word that matters in that fourth item is written. A text message saying it is fine to come home is not a waiver, and acting on one is how a person facing a single felony charge acquires a second one.

Can a strangulation charge be dropped if the alleged victim recants?

Usually not. In Wisconsin, the decision to charge belongs to the district attorney, not to the alleged victim. State law directs that an officer’s arrest decision may not be based on the victim’s consent to a prosecution or on the relationship between the parties, and district attorney policies must reflect the same principle.

Prosecutors build these cases to survive a reluctant or absent complaining witness. Available without live cooperation:

The 911 recording and any body camera footage.
Statements made at the scene before anyone had time to reconsider.
Photographs, medical records, and prior reports involving the same parties.

A recantation becomes one piece of evidence the jury weighs rather than a stop sign. The absence of an arrest at the scene does not close the matter either: where an officer had reasonable grounds and did not arrest, Wisconsin law requires a written report explaining why, sent to the district attorney for a charging decision.

Why do prosecutors and judges treat strangulation so seriously?

Because published research links non-fatal strangulation to later homicide. A case-control study of abused women in the Journal of Emergency Medicine found prior non-fatal strangulation associated with roughly seven-fold odds of later becoming a homicide victim. That research shapes charging decisions, bail arguments, and sentencing recommendations in Wisconsin courtrooms.

The study most often cited is Glass and colleagues, published in 2008, comparing 506 homicide and attempted homicide cases against 427 abused controls:

Odds ratio of 6.70 for becoming an attempted homicide victim.
Odds ratio of 7.48 for becoming a completed homicide victim.
Non-fatal strangulation was reported by 10 percent of abused controls, 45 percent of attempted homicide cases, and 43 percent of homicide cases.

Figures considerably larger than those circulate widely, and some secondary sources inflate them further. The numbers above are what the study reported. It is also a case-control study of women already in abusive relationships, so it measures an association within that population and says nothing about whether any particular defendant poses that risk. For someone facing this charge, the point is that the research is already in the room: expect a higher bail argument than the charge class alone would suggest and a sentencing argument organized around lethality.

Does a strangulation conviction affect gun rights in Wisconsin?

Yes, and in most cases permanently. Because every strangulation conviction in Wisconsin is a felony, it bars firearm possession under state law, and possessing a firearm afterward is itself a Class G felony. A parallel federal prohibition generally applies as well.

Wis. Stat. § 941.29(1m)(a) governs. The practical consequences:

Because § 940.235 has no misdemeanor tier, no version of this charge resolves in a conviction that leaves firearm rights intact.
Section 940.235 appears on the statute’s violent felony list, which can trigger a three-year mandatory minimum on a later firearm possession charge where the statute’s timing conditions are met.
Expungement does not fix it. As the commentary to Wisconsin Criminal Jury Instruction 1343 explains, an expunged conviction is not treated as expunged for the federal firearms disability, and restoration of civil rights does not lift the state prohibition.

Firearm rights are restored only through a gubernatorial pardon or another statutory mechanism that expressly provides that relief. For clients in law enforcement, the military, or private security, this is frequently the consequence that matters more than the sentence.

How quickly does the charging decision happen?

Faster than most people expect. Wisconsin directs district attorney offices to adopt policies under which a charging decision on a reported domestic abuse incident is made no later than two weeks after the district attorney receives notice, absent extraordinary circumstances. The window to influence that decision is short.

That two-week figure is a policy directive rather than a jurisdictional deadline, and a charge filed outside it is not invalid. As a practical matter, it describes how these files move, and in many cases the decision is made before the person arrested has spoken to a lawyer. Before a charge is filed, defense counsel can put information in front of the district attorney that the referral packet does not contain:

The fuller context of the altercation.
Inconsistencies across the successive accounts.
Medical records and photographs of injuries on the accused person.
History between the parties that cuts in a different direction than the report suggests.

Two things protect that window. Do not discuss the incident with investigators without a lawyer present, and do not contact the alleged victim. Both are ordinary advice, and both are routinely ignored in the first 48 hours, usually by people trying to fix the situation.

Talk to a Wisconsin criminal defense lawyer

Strangulation charges in Wisconsin move quickly, carry a felony conviction with no misdemeanor alternative, and reach consequences that outlast any sentence imposed. They are also genuinely contestable, because the intent element is narrow and the accounts are often inconsistent.

Gimbel, Reilly, Guerin & Brown, LLP has been a trial and litigation firm in Milwaukee since 1968. Our criminal defense team includes former prosecutors and former Wisconsin State Public Defenders who have handled domestic abuse and strangulation cases from both sides. We appear in Milwaukee County Circuit Court and in circuit courts throughout Wisconsin.

If you have been arrested for strangulation or suffocation, or you have reason to believe a report has been made, call 414-271-1440 or send a message through our contact form.

Frequently asked questions

Does the alleged victim have to lose consciousness?

No. The statute requires proof that normal breathing or blood circulation was impeded. It does not require loss of consciousness and sets no minimum duration.

Does the charge apply if I covered someone’s mouth rather than their neck?

Yes. Section 940.235 covers two methods: applying pressure on the throat or neck, and blocking the nose or mouth. There is no requirement that the neck was touched at all.

Can both people be arrested after a domestic incident?

Wisconsin law directs officers away from that outcome. Where an officer identifies a predominant aggressor, the statute provides that it is generally not appropriate to arrest anyone else. The officer must weigh the history between the parties, witness statements, the relative degree of injury, threats of future harm, and whether either party acted in self-defense.

What if we were never married and never lived together?

The strangulation charge does not depend on the relationship. What may not apply is Wisconsin’s domestic abuse framework, which reaches a spouse or former spouse, an adult the person lives with or formerly lived with, and an adult the person has a child in common with. A dating relationship outside those categories affects the mandatory arrest rules, the 72-hour contact prohibition, and the surcharge.

What is the domestic abuse surcharge?

A mandatory $100 charge imposed for each offense on conviction under an enumerated statute, including § 940.235, where the court finds the conduct involved a qualifying domestic relationship. It applies whether or not a fine is ordered.

Last reviewed: August 2026

This page is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Reading this page or contacting Gimbel, Reilly, Guerin & Brown, LLP through this website does not create an attorney-client relationship. Every case is different, and prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future matter.