WSAW: Former Marshfield municipal court clerk charged with theft of court funds.
Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog: U.S. Supreme Court consideration of Wisconsin redistricting decision could have significant impact for Voting Rights Act. If the U.S. Supreme Court rules in favor of GOP state lawmakers, the federal justices could allow so-called “race-neutral” redistricting nationwide, says Marquette Professor Atiba Ellis, who has written about the landmark 1965 civil rights law. Combined with previous high court decisions reducing the strength of other parts of the Voting Rights Act, such a ruling would amount to “erasing the efforts of Reconstruction” and going back to a time before the 15th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution extended voting rights to people of color, Ellis fears. Slate: Democrats fail to capitalize on Ketanji Brown Jackson confirmation hearings. Which leads us to the Democrats, who on Monday did an able job of noting that Jackson’s nomination is historic and that her family should be proud, but a dismal job of defining anything akin to a progressive legal philosophy. (Pro tip: “recognizing regular people” is no more a coherent judicial philosophy than is “originalism”). Democrats seem to have all but given up on the larger project of using these confirmation hearings to make any salient argument about the importance of the court, even in a midterm election year, and even in a midterm election year in which Democrats stand poised to lose the Senate, and even, somehow, in a midterm election year in which the Supreme Court looks ready to reverse Roe v Wade, has already reversed it in Texas, stands ready to allow guns in New York subways, and to dismantle the EPA. NC Health News: The correlation between reading disabilities and incarceration. Throughout her career, (Youth Justice Clinic Director Barbara) Fedders has seen how reading disability and incarceration are intertwined. It doesn’t end in the juvenile justice system either — a study from 2000 of incarcerated people in Texas prisons found that approximately 80 percent of Texas prisoners were functionally illiterate. Perpetually behind in their reading, these children experience frustration and embarrassment at being left behind. They act out, either out of frustration or because they’re trying to deflect people from finding out their secret. As they move from one grade to another, they fall further behind, falling through the cracks in the education system, and all too frequently ending up in the juvenile justice system. By the time they meet Fedders, they’ve spent years in school without learning anything because they can’t read, and they’re angry. Reuters: Sports bettors lose appeal in case claiming damages due to baseball's sign-stealing scandal. "This action is nothing more than claims brought by disgruntled fantasy sports participants, unhappy with the effect that cheating in MLB games may have had on their level of success in fantasy sports contests," Circuit Judge Joseph Bianco wrote for a three-judge panel. He said a contrary ruling in the proposed class action could open the door for unhappy bettors and ticketholders to sue whenever off-field surprises affect game outcomes.
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'By Gretchen Schuldt A proposed Milwaukee ordinance that would label some repeated traffic offenses a public nuisance was sent back to committee by the Common Council Tuesday after the city attorney's office said it was too broad and unenforceable. "The ordinance would apply to a single violation of one of the listed traffic laws; and the listed traffic laws include both serious and relatively minor violations," Deputy City Attorney Todd Farris wrote in a memo. "For example, one violation for 'driving too slow' would, under the proposed ordinance, be a nuisance per se." "We believe that in an injunction proceeding brought by the City, a court would likely conclude that the proposed ordinance is unreasonably broad....In other words, we do not believe that the proposed ordinance would accomplish the goal of making it easier for the City to obtain injunctive relief against problem drivers," he wrote. Ald. Michael Murphy, the main sponsor of the measure, introduced it as a way to deal with the endemic reckless driving that is infuriating residents and threatening lives and limbs. Under the proposal, numerous driving offenses related to reckless driving, such as speeding, fleeing an officer, running stoplights, or driving on sidewalks, could be considered a public nuisance, allowing the city to file suit to seize the car involved. Murphy has said the ordinance was meant to target people stopped multiple times, Some statutes included, however, go beyond reckless driving. One offense covered by the ordinance, for example, would be leaving a leaflet on a car. In a memo provided by his office last week, the Milwaukee Police Department said the driving-related state laws included in the ordinance "were intended to broadly cover sections that refer to behavior that falls within the spirit of reckless driving, since not all reckless driving violations are cited under that specific statute. For example, driving on the wrong side of the road is perceived as "reckless' and could be cited under reckless driving... Not all subsections within those statutes may directly apply. They are broadly defined to buttress a nuisance litigation action under a nuisance per se theory." The city attorney's opinion, also signed by City Attorney Tearman Spencer, suggested that "an ordinance declaring habitual or repeated violations of the more serious traffic laws to be a nuisance per se would stand a much better chance of being upheld by a court in an injunction proceeding." Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Number of children at Milwaukee County juvenile jail exceeds capacity.
The Vel R. Phillips Juvenile Justice Center, the county's 127-bed juvenile detention center, held 141 youth on Feb. 21. That was an "all-time high" for the facility, which has been struggling for months with overcrowding driven in part by a rise in serious crime, said Kelly Pethke, who heads the county's Children, Youth and Family Services division, during a county committee meeting Wednesday. Caseloads are ballooning, and on average, young people are being held in the detention center for longer periods of time, she said. Some youth are being held on serious charges in pending cases. Others have been sentenced and are just waiting for an opening in a county rehabilitation program. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Mother of man who died at Racine County Jail files federal lawsuit. CNN: Ketanji Brown Jackson's hearings will highlight rightward path of Supreme Court. Deadline: Federal judge dismisses Project Veritas' defamation lawsuit against CNN. HuffPost (AP): Jury in case charging three with plot to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer hears undercover recordings. (Now-defendant Adam) Fox didn’t know that (Agent Mark) Schweers was wearing a recording device as he talked excitedly about attacking the Michigan Capitol, teaming up with a militia called the Wolverine Watchmen, and restoring a “constitutional republic.” “We want her flex-cuffed on a table while we all pose and get our pictures taken like we just made the biggest drug bust in . . . history,” Fox said of Whitmer, laughing and using profanities. Above the Law: Georgia municipalities to pay $900,000 over mass arrest for less than an ounce of marijuana. (O)n December 31, 2017, members of the Cartersville Police Department waltzed right into a New Year’s Eve party, without an invitation. Because they drove by an apartment complex and “smelled marijuana.” With their windows up because it was December. And they knew exactly which unit the smell was coming from. Once inside, police searched the premises, found less than one ounce of weed — i.e. misdemeanor weight — and, when no one claimed it, arrested everyone at the party and charged them with possession. Seventy guests, 50 of whom are Black and five of whom were minors at the time, were transported to jail by the Bartow County Drug Task Force, where they were forced to stand outside in winter cold for hours waiting to be strip-searched and placed in a freezing holding cell for up to three days. According to the ensuing complaint, many of them were denied medical care and threatened with isolation if they complained. Death Penalty Information Center: After more than 20 years, new trial granted to man on death row in Pennsylvania. A Pennsylvania trial court has granted a new trial to death-row prisoner Kevin Dowling . . . finding that prosecutors withheld evidence that would have shown he was 40 miles away when their sole eyewitness claimed to have seen him near the murder scene. . . . “This Court has . . . thoroughly and extensively considered whether the Commonwealth participated in the suppression of exculpatory evidence prior to Petitioner’s trial in October and November of 1998, as well as whether the Commonwealth failed to correct testimony . . . which it knew or should have known to be materially false,” (Lebanon County Senior Judge Robert J.) Eby wrote. “On both of these issues, we concluded that it has.” By Gretchen Schuldt Three state Supreme Court justices have called for the court to reconsider whether the Legislature can adopt political maps through a joint resolution, bypassing involvement by the governor. Justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley was joined by Justices Annette K. Ziegler and Patience D. Roggensack in her dissent to the court's 4-3 decision selecting redistricting maps submitted by Gov. Tony Evers. The justices said the court should revisit its 1964 decision in State ex rel. Reynolds v. Zimmerman, which upheld the governor's ability to approve or veto maps proposed by the Legislature. "While Zimmerman has been precedent for many years, it is the only case to address that issue, and this court has never had the opportunity to revisit it because every redistricting case that followed was heard exclusively in federal court. Unlike a fine wine, precedent does not necessarily get better with age," she said. "The foundation for Zimmerman is weak," Bradley wrote. "The text of Article IV, Section 3 (of the state constitution) does not contemplate a role for the Governor in the drawing of assembly and senate maps....While the Legislature's prerogative to enact laws is subject to a gubernatorial veto, the constitution does not describe the Legislature's duty to redistrict as lawmaking, suggesting the constitution denies the Governor a role in the process." In a footnote, she added, "Perhaps this court should consider, as a remedy, allowing the Legislature to redistrict by joint resolution. Unless a court adopts the Governor's maps as it did in this case, a court-ordered remedy ultimately denies the Governor control anyway. Zimmerman does not prohibit the Legislature from implementing redistricting plans by joint resolution in the event of an impasse." Sachin Chheda, director of the Fair Elections Project, which opposes partisan gerrymandering, said the justices' proposal was an effort to "pervert the law in order to advance the Republican cause." “It’s unfortunate that the partisan, right-wing judicial activists on the Supreme Court continue in their efforts to ignore the law, the constitution, and established precedent," he said. "What folks want is nonpartisan, independent judges, and not partisan activists. There’s no way citizens will stand for this kind of manipulation of our political process.” If the court were to reject Zimmerman, it could also remove redistricting from court review and open the door to additional powers reserved for the legislature alone, without being subject to gubernatorial veto or involvement. That is because, as the Zimmerman court noted but Bradley did not mention, the state constitution refers several times to legislative authority without specifically describing a role for the governor: Sec. 1, art. III, Wis. Const. "Every person, of the age of twenty-one years or upwards, belonging to either of the following classes, who shall have resided in the state for one year next preceding any election, and in the election district where he offers to vote such time as may be prescribed by the legislature, not exceeding thirty days, shall be deemed a qualified elector at such election: . . ." Sec. 23, art. IV, Wis. Const. "The legislature shall establish but one system of town and county government, which shall be as nearly uniform as practicable." Sec. 26, art. IV, Wis. Const. "The legislature shall never grant any extra compensation . . . " Sec. 7, art. VII, Wis. Const. ". . . the legislature may, from time to time, authorize additional circuit judges to be chosen. . . ." Sec. 5, art. VIII, Wis. Const. "The legislature shall provide for an annual tax sufficient to defray the estimated expenses of the state for each year; and whenever the expenses of any year shall exceed the income, the legislature shall provide for levying a tax for the ensuing year, sufficient, with other sources of income, to pay the deficiency as well as the estimated expenses of such ensuing year." (Emphases in Zimmerman decision.) Bradley's suggestion that the Legislature alone has the authority to enact legislative maps echoes the "independent legislature" idea being pushed in conservative legal circles. Under that theory, only state legislatures can regulate congressional elections, including redistricting. The theory, if enacted, would eliminate any role for governors or judges. The theory has been rejected by courts for more than 100 years, but four U.S. Supreme Court justices have signaled they may buy into it. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Father plans to sue Kenosha police and school district over off-duty officer allegedly kneeling on 12-year-old girl's neck.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee County expects costs of $420,000 per juvenile imprisoned this year. It is a situation that county officials worry might result in cuts to local, community-based programs that focus on prevention or on rehabilitating young people involved in crime, at a time when serious crime is on the rise and caseloads are ballooning. The New York Times: Why having experienced sexual violence should not disqualify a person from jury service. The idea is to identify jurors whose experiences could render them unable to be fair and impartial. By this logic, it may seem reasonable to ask potential jurors during selection for a sex crime trial whether they have ever experienced sexual violence. Lawyers on both sides may have good reasons for wanting to know. But the search for impartiality in a sex crime trial must be handled differently. Questions like the one to the (Ghislaine) Maxwell jury show how far American courts are from reflecting some basic truths about sexual violence and send the wrong message about what impartiality means. The New York Times: Former employees urge Congress to protect U.S. Courts employees from harassment and discrimination. Former law clerks and other federal judiciary employees shared highly personal stories of workplace harassment and discrimination Thursday, urging Congress to pass legislation that would better protect such workers and ensure an impartial system for reporting misconduct. Lawmakers from both parties said that, despite efforts by the U.S. courts to overhaul their system, problems persist because the judiciary’s more than 30,000 employees still lack the same legal rights as other government and private-sector workers. NBC News: States' different uses of tax revenue from cannabis sales. Some states, such as Maine and Michigan, have put the money into general funds or paid for infrastructure like roads. Others, such as Illinois and California, funded programs to address the harm from drug arrests while also providing money to police departments. State general funds were the biggest recipient of marijuana cash last year, getting $494 million total. Education came in second place, with $405 million, or 15 percent of allocated marijuana taxes. And $172 million went to public safety and police departments. About $47 million — a small portion of about 2 percent — went to programs specifically earmarked for cannabis equity or for communities affected by drug arrests. Reuters: Prosecutor's absolute immunity shields him from liability for constitutional violations. A federal appeals court decided last Wednesday that a former district attorney on Long Island has immunity from a civil rights suit even though his offices violated the Constitution’s prohibitions on forced labor by wrongfully indicting 10 Filipino nurses who quit their jobs in protest. Associated Press: Dane County judge says defendant can't opt out of sentencing hearing.
Reuters: Working group issues report and recommendations regarding workplace misconduct within federal judicial branch. The Federal Judiciary Workplace Conduct Working Group's 32-page report was released ahead of a hearing on Thursday before a subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee to consider workplace harassment in the judiciary and whether legislation is needed to address it. The report's recommendations will likely not fully appease many reform advocates and lawmakers, who say the judiciary's 30,000 employees deserve greater statutory protections against harassment and discrimination. U.S. Department of Justice: Federal government settling 40 civil cases concerning Parkland, Florida, school shooting. Reuters: President Joe Biden recognizes need to change culture regarding violence against women. President Joe Biden on Wednesday said it is time to change the culture and not just U.S. law to stop violence against women as he celebrated expanded protections for survivors of sexual assault and domestic violence. A day earlier, Biden signed a spending bill that included a renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, which also provides more resources and training programs for law enforcement, among other steps. Slate: States are taking cues from Texas' abortion law; here's Idaho's bill, headed to its governor for signature. Not to be outdone, Idaho has taken a slightly different approach: On Monday, its Legislature passed a bill that effectively allows the father, siblings, grandparents, aunts, and uncles of a “preborn child” to veto an abortion. The law applies not just to minors, but to any adult seeking the procedure. . . The Idaho law has an exception for rape, but only if the victim files a police report. This exception is cold comfort given that few victims of sexual assault report the crime to the police, in part because filing a report could result in further abuse, especially for victims of intimate partner violence. If a rape victim terminates her pregnancy without filing a police report, the rapist’s family members can all sue and collect separately. The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Steven Harris, has confirmed that if a rapist has 10 siblings, each can sue for $20,000. The bill therefore makes it incredibly easy for a sexual assailant’s family to further victimize the woman by profiting from her pregnancy. Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Gov. Tony Evers allocates $50 million in federal funding for courts and police.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: George Christenson and Anna Hodges now in race for clerk of court position. Newsweek: Survey results show state of knowledge about U.S. Supreme Court and desire to limit justices' terms. The survey of more than 1,000 likely U.S. voters found 69 percent of respondents said they support 18-year terms for justices, including 38 percent who said they "strongly prefer" such a limit. Meanwhile, 17 percent said they favor the current lifetime appointments, with just 7 percent saying they "strongly prefer" it. U.S. Department of Justice: Attorney General issues new Freedom of Information Act (federal open records law) guidelines favoring disclosure and transparency. Slate: Don't be fooled by how proponents portray Florida's "don't say gay" bill. In reality, H.B. 1557 uses intentionally vague language to outlaw a huge amount of speech about LGBTQ people, families, and issues—not just sex—in every grade. And it relies upon a vigilante enforcement mechanism to chill an even broader amount of speech by subjecting violators to humiliating investigations and ruinous lawsuits. The fact that H.B. 1557’s supporters lie about these basic facts suggests that they know their bill is indefensible and must conceal its true meaning to drag it over the finish line. Waco Tribune-Herald: Oklahoma governor sued after barring changes to birth certificates for transgender and binary individuals. “Having a birth certificate that reflects who I am as a human being is crucial and can present a basic issue of safety for me,” plaintiff Rowan Fowler, a transgender woman who wants to correct her birth certificate that currently indicates that her gender is male, said in a statement. “There was no reason for Oklahoma to take away this basic tool that transgender people need to simply go about their everyday lives with dignity, safety, and respect.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: City committee approves $350,000 settlement of race and gender discrimination case.
NJ.com: New York asks U.S. Supreme Court to block New Jersey's exit from agency fighting organized crime affecting New York Harbor. U.S. Courts: Judicial Conference approves online release of federal judges' financial disclosure reports. SCOTUSblog: Arguments against allowing video cameras at U.S. Supreme Court arguments. We should not want our judges to be celebrities with constituencies. To the contrary, we should want them to be limited interpreters of the law, quite unlike politicians. While I don’t think there is a high risk that the current justices might “play to the cameras,” it would be less safe to say that about some of the lawyers appearing before the court. Election Law Blog: Defamation suits filed against right-wing news outlets to combat dissemination of false information. NPR: More on using defamation suits to fight media disinformation. Our information landscape right now is like the Wild West. Anyone with a YouTube account, anyone with a website, they can go out and reach more people than Walter Cronkite. And in this new frontier, there are a whole set of groups that are just publishing lies, and they're doing it for profit, and they're doing it for personal gain. And so what we're doing is setting up an organization called Law for Truth. It's going to serve as the sheriff in this new frontier and ensure that people who go out and intentionally spread lies about individuals are held accountable. And in doing that, we're going to help protect our democracy. By Gretchen Schuldt A County Board committee has recommended, 3-1, rejecting a proposal to support minimum bail for some people charged with crimes. Instead, the Intergovernmental Relations Committee unanimously recommended the state adopt a program similar to New Jersey's, which allows preventive detention of people who have been found by a validated risk-assessment tool to pose a significant danger to the community, and allows release of defendants charged with less serious and non-violent offenses. County Supervisor Patti Logsdon sought support for bills in the legislature that would require a minimum $5,000 bail for anyone accused of a crime who had previously been convicted of bail jumping and a $10,000 bail for anyone accused of a violent misdemeanor or any felony. "These people – they're not following the law," Logsdon told the Intergovernmental Relations Committee. "If you have a felony conviction in the past, you should have a bail set...They need to be put in our jail or House of Correction until we find the facts of it," Logsdon said. She said existence of the minimum bails could also be "a good consideration for them to think before they do the crime." If Darrell Brooks Jr. had not been released from the Milwaukee County Jail on $1,000 bail, she said, the six people he allegedly killed in the Waukesha parade tragedy "would still be with us." Committee members agreed, as has District Attorney John Chisholm, that Brooks should not have been released. Supervisor Anthony Staskunas said he believed the resolution supporting the New Jersey program would be a better way to deal with pre-trial defendants and any threat they may pose. That resolution was introduced by Supervisors Shawn Rolland, Ryan Clancy, and Willie Johnson Jr. "These people aren't convicted of anything yet," Staskunas said. "They're presumed innocent." The minimum-bail proposals, he said, are "unfunded mandates to stuff our House of Correction and stuff our jail when we don't have any room and not give us any money to do anything." Clancy, who is not a committee member, spoke against Logsdon's proposal at the meeting, noting the need to look at data and "what actually works, rather than what feels like justice." "I understand the desire for justice in this case (the Waukesha parade tragedy) in particular as well as in others, but this resolution does not get us closer to justice, but to vengeance," he said. The "people of Milwaukee County deserve safety, not punitive retribution." "Higher bails do not keep us safe," Mia Noel, founder and director of the Milwaukee Freedom Fund, told the committee. "They keep poor people in jail for months," she said. "Additionally, it costs Wisconsin taxpayers millions of dollars a year to keep poor people in jail." Johnson was the only committee member to support Logsdon's resolution. Supervisors Joseph Czarnezki, who is committee chair and a WJI Board member, Staskunas, and Sequanna Taylor opposed it. Wisconsin State Journal: Numbers don't back up special counsel's claims about nursing-home voters.
In his report to the Legislature, (Michael) Gableman claimed to have discovered that 100% of the registered voters in nursing homes in heavily Democratic Dane and Milwaukee counties, and in Racine County, home to the Democratic-leaning city of Racine, cast ballots in 2020. In Kenosha and Brown counties, home to the Democratic-leaning cities of Kenosha and Green Bay, the figures were 97% and 95% respectively. While the videos certainly raise questions about the fitness of some of those who voted from Wisconsin nursing homes, the Wisconsin State Journal could find no evidence to support the claim that turnout in nursing homes was anywhere close to what Gableman claims. WXOW: Governor Tony Evers gives prison staff a temporary raise. Filter: Study shows disparities in federal life sentences for drug crimes. Studying federal life and de facto life sentences for drugs in federal courts from 1990 to 2020, Dr. Fraga found stunningly awful racial disparities. Federal life sentences are practically reserved for defendants who are Black (62.4 percent) or Hispanic (22 percent). Crack cocaine was the drug involved in roughly half of federal life sentences, yet the disparities held independent of drug type. In addition, many people were punished more harshly for wanting to exercise their constitutional rights. As Fraga writes, “An astonishing 72% percent of those sentenced to life or de facto life for drug trafficking exercised their right to trial.” Reason: Compassionate release from federal custody surged during pandemic. Wisconsin Public Radio (NPR): U.S. Justice Department to drop plea agreement provisions limiting compassionate release. The Justice Department is directing prosecutors to stop limiting defendants' ability to seek compassionate release in most federal plea agreements, after advocates criticized the practice as cruel and against the intent of Congress. DOJ officials handed down the order a month after an NPR story detailed the practice, which curtailed peoples' ability to petition for release from prison because of severe illness or other extraordinary circumstances. That story drew the attention of Attorney General Merrick Garland who this week said it seemed "wrong" and pledged to fix the issue. Politico: Democrats' lack of progress on cannabis reform On the brink of gaining control in Washington, Sen. Chuck Schumer said emphatically in 2020 that “I am going to do EVERYTHING I can to end the federal prohibition on marijuana” if Democrats took back the Senate. But 14 months since winning, Senate Democrats haven’t even succeeded at changing the little things. NBC News: Texas Supreme Court effectively ends challenge to abortion law by ruling that licensing officials have no role in enforcing the law---only private citizens do. |
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