Reuters: Nomination of John Lee for Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals heads to full Senate.

Reuters: U.S. Supreme Court allows counting of undated mail-in ballots in Pennsylvania.

The Intercept: Immigration and Customs Enforcement searching personal-information database on massive scale.

The Intercept first reported last year that ICE had purchased access to LexisNexis Risk Solutions databases for $16.8 million, unlocking an oceanic volume of personal information on American citizens and noncitizens alike that spans hundreds of millions of individuals, totaling billions of records drawn from 10,000 different sources. Becoming a LexisNexis customer not only provides law enforcement with instant, easy access to a wealth of easily searchable data points on hundreds of millions of people, but also lets them essentially purchase data rather than having to formally request it or seek a court order.

Internal documents now show that this unfathomably large quantity of data is being searched with a regularity that is itself vast. LexisNexis usage logs between March and September 2021 totaled 1,211,643 searches and 302,431 “reports,” information packages that provide an exhaustive rundown of an individual’s location, work history, family relationships, and many other data points aggregated by LexisNexis, a data broker better known for its legal research resources.

CNN: Federal justice department investigating Louisiana State Police for racial discrimination in policing and use of excessive force.

This is the first pattern-or-practice investigation of a statewide law enforcement agency the Justice Department has opened in more than two decades, (Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke) said.

But it is the fifth the department has launched against any police agency since the start of the Biden administration, she said, including ongoing probes of departments in Minneapolis; Louisville, Kentucky; Phoenix; and Mount Vernon, New York, she said.

Marijuana Moment: Bipartisan talks about marijuana banking and expungements.

Rep. Dave Joyce (R-OH) had a meeting with (Senate Majority Leader Chuck) Schumer this week to go over possible avenues of interim reform like the SAFE Banking Act or the HOPE Act, which he’s sponsoring alongside Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). That measure would incentivize states and local governments to expunge cannabis records in their jurisdictions.

Reuters: $175 million settlement by Signet Jewelers resolves gender bias claims of 68,000 female employees.

WPR: How prison copays for medical care can perpetuate poverty.

Some states suspended all medical copays during the pandemic; but in Wisconsin, at the start of the pandemic, the state Department of Corrections suspended medical copays for incarcerated people who suffered from COVID-19 or other respiratory symptoms. That policy is still in place, while other states have reverted to pre-pandemic policies. 

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Supreme Court revokes license of lawyer convicted of stalking ex-girlfriend.

Associated Press: Federal judge dismisses suit seeking to bar three Wisconsin Republicans from 2022 ballot.

WXOW (Associated Press): Michael Gabelman praises appointment of Don Millis to Wisconsin Elections Commission.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Dane County judge orders Michael Gabelman to testify in person on Friday.

Remington denied a motion from Gableman's attorney to reject a motion to compel the testimony after learning Gableman and his staff were routinely deleting emails, text messages and other documents gathered and produced by his taxpayer-funded review of the 2020 election. 

O'Melveny & Myers: Environmental Protection Agency issues guidance on legal tools for advancing environmental justice.

Reuters: Seven Sentencing Commission nominees appear before Senate committee; Commission has lacked quorum for three years.

Associated Press: U.S. Supreme Court further limits ability to sue federal officials for rights violations.

In a tweet, Athul Acharya, the executive director of the group Public Accountability, said the “short version” of the case is: “Federal agents can violate nearly any constitutional right with impunity and you have no recourse.”

The upshot and The guts

Nhia Lee petitioned for review of a decision of the court of appeals, State v. Lee, reversing the circuit court's orders denying his motion to dismiss the criminal complaint and remanding with directions to grant the motion and dismiss the criminal complaint without prejudice. After reviewing the record and the briefs, and after hearing oral arguments, we conclude that this matter should be dismissed as improvidently granted.

By the Court. – The review of the decision of the court of appeals is dismissed as improvidently granted. 

Concurrence

In her dissent, Justice Rebecca Dallet identifies a number of "systemic issues" with the "process for appointing counsel for indigent defendants." Although acknowledging a lack of merit with two of the three issues Lee raises, she nevertheless accuses the court of "fail[ing] him" by dismissing his petition as improvidently granted. Justice Dallet doesn't explain how the court "fail[s]" Lee, considering he would remain incarcerated regardless of this court's disposition of his case. Even if one or more of Lee's issues have merit, Justice Dallet "agree[s] with the court of appeals that, consistent with our precedent, the correct remedy for failing to hold a timely preliminary examination is dismissal without prejudice for lack of personal jurisdiction." Resolving Lee's case therefore would require nothing more than an opinion from this court agreeing with the court of appeals. There are much better uses of this court's time than repeating work already done correctly by a lower court.

Justice Dallet seems to suggest Lee's case somehow offers an avenue for taking "transformative steps" to implement policy changes. As she sees it, "Lee's appeal provided the court with the chance to highlight the problems with our appointed-counsel system, so all three branches of government can begin working toward solutions." That's not part of our case-deciding function. When we grant a petition for review, we resolve issues of law.

The court's superintending authority, which Justice Dallet would apparently use to effect policy changes she acknowledges would inflict a financial burden on counties, "is ordinarily exercised when a party asserts error by the circuit court causing 'great and irreparable' 'hardship.' " There was no error in this case, and we should not transform it (or any other case) into a vehicle for "highlight[ing]" issues that are more properly considered through a rule petition or legislative proposal. The principal policy changes for which Justice Dallet advocates are properly considered by the legislature, which possesses the power of the purse. We don't have this power, which is why we should decide cases and leave policymaking to the legislature. 

Dissent
The criminal justice system has already failed Nhia Lee twice, and by dismissing his appeal, we fail him as well. First, he was not promptly appointed counsel after being charged with felony drug and identity theft offenses. Second, the circuit court and court commissioners, often over Lee's pro se objections, erroneously exercised their discretion by repeatedly extending the 10-day statutory time limit for holding a preliminary examination solely because the State Public Defender's Office (SPD) had not yet appointed counsel for Lee. Those extensions resulted in Lee being in custody for 113 days before a preliminary examination was held, 101 of which were prior to the appointment of counsel.

Now, with no explanation, the court dismisses his appeal as improvidently granted. By doing so, we minimize the important questions Lee's case raises about the efficacy of Wisconsin's process for appointing counsel for indigent defendants, which protects one of a defendant's most important constitutional rights. I write separately to discuss the systemic issues highlighted by Lee's case. 

Dallet agrees with the Court of Appeals finding that the correct response to the long delay in holding the preliminary hearing was dismissal of the charges without prejudice, meaning they could be refiled. She also agrees with the appeals court that his speedy-trial claim is premature.

And as for Lee's remaining constitutional claims – that the unjustified delay in holding a preliminary examination resulted in violations of his Sixth Amendment right to counsel or Fourteenth Amendment right to due process – it is not clear from the briefing that these claims, even if successful, would give Lee the remedy he seeks. ...

That said, Lee's final argument merits further attention: that we should use our superintending authority to require circuit courts to appoint counsel at county expense when there are delays in securing SPD-appointed counsel. There are several reasons why this court has not already done so. For starters, appointing counsel at county expense only responds to one reason SPD might have trouble finding an attorney willing to accept an appointment: the low hourly rate for SPD appointments, which is set by statute. Appointing counsel at county expense does not, however, address the other potential obstacles SPD might encounter, including heavy workloads or conflicts of interest among local lawyers, or a relative lack of qualified attorneys in a particular part of the state. Moreover, even if the issue is the meager compensation for SPD appointments, it is difficult to create a bright-line rule for when circuit courts would be required to appoint counsel at the more generous county rate, because any such line would necessarily be arbitrary and could have significant budgetary consequences for counties. 

Nevertheless, there are strong reasons to change the status quo, namely that the costs of maintaining it are too high. Counties bear not just the cost of paying court-appointed counsel but also the costs "of continuing to incarcerate the defendant while awaiting the preliminary hearing."

In addition to the monetary costs, delays in appointing counsel also impose significant and unquantifiable harms on both defendants and the public. Uncounseled defendants may be hindered in their ability to prepare a defense, engage in plea negotiations, or seek pretrial release. And failing to timely appoint counsel to represent an indigent defendant may tarnish the public's perception of the fairness of our criminal justice system by suggesting that speedy justice is available only to those who can afford a private attorney. Not to mention that delays in appointing counsel may lead to the same negative consequences as any other pre-trial delay, such as postponing closure for victims or increasing the chance that witnesses may become unavailable. 

The court of appeals' decision helps to alleviate some of these concerns by mandating that circuit courts carefully consider and analyze, on the record, all relevant factors before extending the statutory time limit for a preliminary examination. Importantly, the court of appeals also emphasized that "simply observing that the defendant has not yet had counsel appointed by SPD is insufficient" to justify extending that time limit. 

Indeed, Lee's case perfectly illustrates that point, as well as broader systemic issues. At each of Lee's 12 review hearings, the circuit court or court commissioner extended the time for holding a preliminary examination on their own motion and often over Lee's objections. Such extensions require a finding of cause; yet the record indicates that neither the circuit court nor the court commissioners knew the cause for the delay. For example, at the fifth review hearing, a court commissioner told Lee, "I wish I could tell you what the hold up is . . . . I'm not sure what the hold up is on your particular case." After Lee wrote the circuit court in mid-October asking for the case to be dismissed due to the failure to hold a preliminary examination, more than three weeks passed before the circuit court held a hearing on Lee's request. At that hearing, a SPD attorney appeared and explained that SPD had contacted over 100 attorneys and none were willing to represent Lee, but she was not asked why that was the case. After the review hearing, the circuit court observed that the delay was "getting very, very close to the point where the Court could find a constitutional violation," but it refused to dismiss the case. Lee waited 44 more days for counsel to finally be appointed. 

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Chief of Staff Celia Jackson quits Milwaukee City Attorney's Office.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Wisconsin Supreme Court approves release of health department records on businesses' COVID outbreaks.

The data in question, which was requested by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from the state health department in June 2020, is now two years old. The court battle has held up the release of the records for more than a year, a situation which attorneys for the state called "absurd." 

The newspaper filed the records request after meatpacking workers and nursing home residents told reporters that employers had left them in the dark about outbreaks at their facilities, putting them and their families at risk.

WPR: Record number of 4-3 opinions at Wisconsin Supreme Court this term.

While the final numbers could change by the end of the court's term, nearly half of all the court's decisions have been 4-3 this term. By contrast, that number was just 7 percent a decade ago.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Election investigator Michael Gableman attempted to have out-of-state attorney depose Kenosha official.

Most officials rebuffed Gableman, in part because they said he didn’t have the authority to interview them behind closed doors, as he planned.

Kenosha's city administrator, John Morrissey, took a different tack and agreed to appear for a deposition in February in Gableman's office in Brookfield. Morrissey showed up but the interview didn't take place because Gableman planned to have it conducted by an attorney who isn’t licensed to practice law in Wisconsin, according to a transcript of what happened that day.

The Guardian: San Francisco residents recall progressive district attorney.

San Francisco residents have voted to recall the district attorney, Chesa Boudin, who was elected on an agenda of criminal justice reform but faced intensifying backlash from law enforcement, conservatives and residents concerned about crime.

Lawfare: Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals decision about § 3 of the 14th Amendment could signal problem for Donald Trump.

As I’ll explain later, only two officials appear to be realistically imperiled by Section 3 at the moment. They are an obscure county commissioner in New Mexico, Couy Griffin, and former President Trump.

There is actually a disquietingly strong case at this point that Trump should be disqualified under Section 3 as a factual matter. I say “disquietingly” because the prospect of seeing his name blocked from the ballot in at least some states—though certainly not in others—gives pause in terms of both the violence it might unleash among his followers and the chaos it could bring to the 2024 presidential election.

Still, the prospect of his returning to power, notwithstanding all the evidence of his having incited the Capitol insurrection, is even more disquieting. 

The Washington Post: Lawyers for migrants say government emails show officials held up family reunifications.

“Although the government told the public that family separation was merely a byproduct of a ‘prosecution’ policy, in fact it implemented a far broader policy of separating all families apprehended at the border regardless of whether the parents were prosecuted or even referred for prosecution,” lawyers for the migrants wrote in the court filing Tuesday.

Associated Press: After leak of Supreme Court draft opinion, a call for greater protection of same-sex marriage.

“We should all be worried about our other fundamental rights that have been obtained through the courts over the last decade or so,” said Utah state Sen. Derek Kitchen, a Democrat and the state’s only LGBTQ lawmaker said on the steps of the statehouse on Tuesday.

Kitchen and New Jersey Assemblyman Don Guardian, a Republican, want more states to remove the same-sex marriage bans from their laws and codify rights for LGBTQ couples to prepare for a worst-case scenario in which the Supreme Court decides to overturn the 2015 same-sex marriage decision.

​To study bail jumping in Wisconsin, WJI and the Mastantuono Coffee & Thomas law firm are looking county by county at 2021 bail-jumping charges. Which counties are charging bail jumping the most? Who are some of the defendants? What happens to those cases? We'll report the statistics from individual counties and tell you the stories from randomly chosen cases.

Case file

This is how piled-on bail-jumping charges meant a nonviolent, sometimes homeless serial drug offender named Adren ended up facing a possible century or more in prison.

Bail-jumping charges long have been criticized by defense attorneys as a hammer used by prosecutors to coerce defendants into plea agreements they might otherwise reject. Other critics argue that the charges are filed to puff up caseload numbers, putting local prosecutors' offices in a better position to ask for more money and staff. Prosecutors reject those arguments.

Before looking at decades in prison (spoiler alert: he didn't get them), Adren, now 31, had a drug problem and a history. The 2021 part of that history started when Adren was the passenger in a car pulled over in February by an Ashwaubenon police officer because its license plates didn't match those of any car on the road.

Adren had been convicted of felony possession of methamphetamine the year before in a case that involved .02 grams of the drug, according to the criminal complaint. Brown County Circuit Judge Donald R. Zuidmulder sentenced him in November 2020 to 30 months' probation. 

He also was convicted, in a separate case, of misdemeanor obstructing an officer and misdemeanor bail jumping. He was homeless at the time he was charged, according to the criminal complaint. Zuidmulder sentenced Adren to two years' probation in that case. 

Adren was charged again in December 2020 with felony meth possession and misdemeanor paraphernalia possession. He was out on a $5,000 signature bond when stopped by the Ashwaubenon officer. 

The driver of the car Adren was in did not stop for almost a quarter of a mile after police tried to pull it over, according to the criminal complaint. That led an officer to request a canine sniff of the car (another problematic police practice). The dog indicated the presence of drugs and a search ensued, turning up some meth in Adren's sock and a meth pipe. The complaint does not list the amount of meth involved.

Adren was charged with meth possession as a repeater, a designation that could add up to four years to the 3½-year sentence maximum. He also was charged with felony bail jumping as a repeater, which could add four years to the six-year maximum sentence. 

Felony bail jumping occurs when a person out on bond on a felony charge violates the conditions of that bond. Misdemeanor bail jumping occurs when a person out on bond on a misdemeanor charge violates the conditions of that bond.

A bail-jumping offense may not by itself be a crime. Missing a court date, violating a local ordinance, or having a drink could all be bail-jumping offenses if bond conditions prohibit those things.

​Misdemeanor bail jumping carries a maximum penalty of nine months in jail and a $10,000 fine; felony bail jumping carries a maximum penalty of six years in prison and a $10,000 fine. 

Under Wisconsin law, a person charged with a crime can be considered a repeater if the person was convicted of a felony during the five-year period immediately preceding the commission of the new alleged crime or if the person was convicted of a misdemeanor on three separate occasions during that same period.

Adren qualified as a repeater because he had been convicted of felony meth possession. He qualified for the felony bail jumping because he was out on bond in the December 2020 meth case. In all, he faced 17½ years in prison on the new charges, according to the complaint.

Brown County Court Commissioner Cynthia Vopal set a $5,000 signature bond. Adren at first refused to sign the bond, but did so three days later, according to online court records. 

In April, 2021, Adren caught another case that exposed him to an additional 22 years and nine months behind bars. Bail-jumping charges were again involved. The underlying crime? For a brief time, he misidentified himself to a Green Bay police officer. 

Police were dispatched to a Shell gas station to check out a suspicious vehicle that had been parked for 30 minutes. Adren, along with at least two other people, was ordered out of the car.

"I asked the male was his name was (sic) and he informed me it was Michal...Smith" and that he was born in 1990," the criminal complaint said. "The male was seated in the back seat of my patrol vehicle on the passenger's side. The male informed me that his his names (sic) actually was Adren --." 

Adren was charged with misdemeanor obstructing an officer and two counts of felony bail jumping, all as repeaters. He was accused again of violating the bond conditions of the December meth / paraphernalia case. He also was charged with violating the bond conditions of the February meth / bail-jumping case. The maximum prison terms were two years and nine months for the obstructing charge and 10 years each on the bail-jumping charges. 

Brown County Court Commissioner Chad Resar set a $1,000 cash bail on April 13. Circuit Judge John P. Zakowski reduced the bond to $250 on July 23 and reduced it again, to $100, on Sept. 24. The $100 was posted on Oct. 7.

Meanwhile, in May, Judge Zuidmulder revoked Adren's probation in his first methamphetamine case and the misdemeanor bail-jumping and obstructing case and sentenced him to 6 months in jail with work release privileges.
​
In November, Adren was busted with a whopping 1.65 grams of marijuana in the car he was driving. Police also found a pipe and a grinder, a tool used to break cannabis into smaller and consistently sized pieces. He was charged with possession of marijuana as a repeater, possession of paraphernalia as a repeater, and three counts of felony bail jumping – for violating his bond in each of his 2021 cases – all as a repeater. He faced a maximum of 34 years and seven months in prison and fines totaling more than $30,000. 

He was represented in his cases by the State Public Defender's office, an indication of poverty. 

Brown County Court Commissioner Paul E. Burke set a $1,500 cash bond. Adren did not post it.

Prosecutors in November charged Adren again, this time for selling four grams of meth to a confidential informant in two separate deals that occurred the previous March and April. This time, charged with two counts of meth delivery as a repeater, and four counts of felony bail jumping, he faced up to 75½ years in prison.

Burke set a $5,000 cash bond. Adren remained in jail. He faced more than a century in prison on the two November cases alone.

In May and June of this year, Adren moved forward with his outstanding cases in a way that could resolve them without any prison time at all. He was accepted into drug treatment court. Under that program, non-violent drug offenders are placed on three years of probation with 90 days of conditional jail time either imposed or stayed. Their cases remain in court for at least a year before the participants graduate.

He also entered into a deferred prosecution agreement in the almost-35-year marijuana case. Under the agreement, he pleaded guilty to one count of felony bail jumping with sentencing deferred for three years. If he successfully completes drug court and probation, the case will be dismissed.​

ABC: Retired Juneau County Circuit Judge John Roemer killed in his home; had sentenced suspect in 2005.

Courthouse News Service: Wisconsin Supreme Court holds that refusal to submit to blood test can't be counted as a prior operating-while-intoxicated offense.

In a 4-3 majority opinion penned by Justice Rebecca Dallet, the high court said the part of Wisconsin’s graduated-penalty scheme for OWI offenses that allows for previous revocations over refusing a blood test to be counted as criminal offenses in determining the penalty for multiple-OWI crimes is unconstitutional “because it threatens with criminal penalties those who exercise their Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches,” agreeing with the defendant in the underlying case.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Data show drop in sexual-assault prosecutions in Milwaukee County.

Prosecutors issued charges in 40% of the 306 cases referred to them last year, a drop from a charging rate of 55% in 2016.
​
The total number of referrals last year represented a 44% drop from the 551 cases referred in 2016, according to data from the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office.

The New York Times: Upcoming Supreme Court decision may hamper environmental protection measures.

The justices will determine how much authority the Environmental Protection Agency has to address the climate crisis by regulating emissions of climate-warming carbon dioxide from power plants.

Reuters: D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals extends discrimination law to workplace transfers.

The court revived a lawsuit by Mary Chambers, a former investigator for the District of Columbia Attorney General's office who claims her numerous requests for lateral transfers to different divisions were denied while similar requests from male colleagues were granted. . . .

The D.C. Circuit agreed on Friday, saying the (Title VII) law broadly prohibits discrimination with respect to "compensation, terms, conditions, or privileges of employment," and that no requirement to show harm exists in the law.

Insider: House Democrat proposes creative way to get gun restrictions passed using excise tax.

"What it's intended to do is provide another creative pathway to actually make some sensible gun control happen," (Rep. Don) Beyer told Insider. "We think that a 1,000% fee on assault weapons is just the kind of restrictive measure that creates enough fiscal impact to qualify for reconciliation."

Crooks & Liars: Rights groups demand that Google change location tracking in advance of Roe being overturned.

"Google's collection and storage of location data will make the company complicit in the criminalization of people seeking abortions in a post-Roe world," said the groups, including Fight for the Future, MediaJustice, and Amnesty International. "The company must immediately stop unnecessary collection and retention of our location data." .  . .

In 2020, (Google) received 11,554 geofence warrants from law enforcement agencies, according to data published by Google. Should Roe be overturned, as a leaked draft Supreme Court opinion last month suggested it will be, prosecutors in more than two dozen states where abortion would be banned without the ruling in place could demand that Google share its data showing who visited abortion clinics over a period of time.

Above the Law: Alex Jones' attempt to use bankruptcy to block trial of Sandy Hook families' claims didn't work.

WIZM: Lisa McDougal appointed to Richland County bench.

Bloomberg Law: U.S. Supreme Court still hasn't issued half of its opinions this term.

Amid signs of internal discord, the US Supreme Court is waiting until the bitter end to do the largest share of its work in more than 70 years.

The court is due to issue 33 opinions, a whopping 53% of its expected total in argued cases, as its 2021-22 term comes to an end in the next month. 

Slate: More reasons not to rely on Justice Samuel Alito's version of abortion history.

But in the real world, Oregon prosecutors never even considered prosecuting Dunn for performing the abortion. Quite the opposite. Appearing before the Oregon Supreme Court, attorneys for the state insisted that “abortion is not a crime” under Oregon law unless it results in the death “of a quick fetus.” Dunn had accordingly broken no law because he performed Kruse’s abortion prior to quickening—the point at which a fetus makes its first noticeable movement, as early as fifteen or sixteen weeks in pregnancy. . . .

Correcting the historical record matters. Noted conservative and libertarian originalists like professors Michael McConnell and Randy Barnett have argued that the 14th Amendment’s original meaning protects unenumerated rights that a substantial majority of states respected for a lengthy period of history. That describes the legal status of pre-quickening abortion throughout our nation’s early years: It was permitted by every state at the founding and still by a majority of states when the 14th Amendment was ratified. Contrary to Alito’s opinion, in other words, history and tradition actually support a constitutional right to abortion for much of early pregnancy.

Hawaii News Now: Youths sue Hawaii over climate change.

NPR: Michael Avenatti gets four years for stealing book proceeds from Stormy Daniels.

Government Technology: N.H. city building surveillance network with home footage.

Manchester homeowners, businesses and just about anyone with a security camera would be able to feed their video to Manchester police under an information system under consideration by the department.

Police said video feeds would be integrated and used in real time to assist officers who are responding to a crime. It also could save time for detectives, who now have to approach people and ask for their security camera video while investigating a crime.

Yahoo News: Peaceful protestors suing to purge government records tracking their activities.

TITAN Fusion Center — short for Terrorism Information Threat Assessment Network — in Salem is among 79 TITAN centers across the United States according to the National Network of Fusion Centers website. Oregon's TITAN Fusion Center combines state and federal law enforcement resources with a mission to "protect Oregon citizens from terrorist and criminal activity by providing an all-crimes criminal information clearinghouse supporting by multiple agencies," according to the program's website. . . .

"None of the plaintiffs engage in or support, nor have ever engaged in or supported criminal activity that would warrant Oregon DOJ's attention or fall within Oregon DOJ's delegated powers," the lawsuit states.

Madison365: Dane County Circuit Judge Everett Mitchell running for state supreme court.

Mitchell, a former prosecutor, currently serves as the presiding judge of the juvenile division in Dane County. He oversees cases involving child welfare, juvenile delinquency, family law, civil law, and criminal proceedings. Judge Mitchell also presides over Dane County’s High Risk Drug Court Program, which supports adults with drug addictions and criminal cases by connecting participants to treatment and mental health services. 

WisPolitics.com: Milwaukee County Circuit Court receives eviction-diversion grant.

The grant will help the circuit court and its partners in Milwaukee County government to build on eviction-diversion efforts undertaken during the COVID-19 pandemic, said District One Chief Judge Mary Triggiano, Milwaukee County Circuit Court.

Each court will use the grant funding to hire dedicated staff to implement holistic,
sustainable, and community-driven strategies for resolving legal problems. Successful eviction diversion programs provide landlords and tenants with the time, information, and resources necessary to resolve their housing problems without prolonged litigation.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Lack of options for girls in juvenile justice system.

“Years and years ago, it was only young boys that committed crimes. All the resources, all the money, all the projects were put into youth boys to figure out how to stop recidivism,” she said. “Starting in 2004, you started seeing some of these girls aren’t following that pattern anymore, but not enough to throw resources at it. Now, more than ever, we’re seeing more girls involved in violent crimes.”

“What we usually did was say, put them in the boys’ program,” she added. “But girls have different needs, wants and issues.”

Reuters: Wisconsin high court says no insurance coverage for COVID losses.

Slate: The U.S. Supreme Court almost allowed censorship of the internet in shadow docket.

If only five justices are willing to defend the bedrock constitutional principles flouted by H.B. 20, are any precedents really safe at this court? Suddenly, settled law is up for grabs, and no one can predict with any real certainty which corrupt and harebrained laws will survive at SCOTUS. Tech executives should be pretty happy with Tuesday’s order: The five justices who halted H.B. 20 are certain to strike down the law when it comes before them on the merits next term. The rest of us, though, should pause to wonder how secure our own rights are when the country’s most powerful corporations and lawyers can barely convince SCOTUS to uphold the First Amendment.

CNN: California task force issues first report on ongoing harms of slavery.

In a 500-page interim report, the California Reparations Task Force detailed California's involvement in slavery and how it continues to negatively impact Black Americans. The nine-member panel is the first of its kind in any state. Advocates have been pushing lawmakers to replicate it at the federal level. . . .

The document outlines how Black Americans have been harmed, including by slavery and political disenfranchisement, and in labor, housing, education, the criminal justice system, and arts and culture. The panel included preliminary recommendations for each category but said a final report will be issued next year.

WLWT5: Ohio Senate votes to cut training requirements and allow teachers to carry guns in school.

If passed into law, individual school districts will decide if teachers in their district can be armed.

The controversial House Bill 99, would cut the training hours for school staff to be certified to carry guns in a school from 700 to initial training that "shall not exceed" 24 hours, according to the latest version from the Senate committee.

Axios: Alex Jones and Infowars trying new small-business bankruptcy provisions against claims by Sandy Hook families.

LaCrosse Tribune: LaCrosse County Circuit Judge Ramona Gonzalez reverses retirement decision.

Reuters: Federal court governing body approves plan for free searching of PACER court records.

NBC: U.S. Justice Department appeals order tossing airplane mask mandate.

The New York Times: U.S. Supreme Court blocks Texas law barring social media companies from filtering speech.

The court’s brief order was unsigned and gave no reasons, which is typical when the justices act on emergency applications. The order was not the last word in the case, which is pending before a federal appeals court and may return to the Supreme Court.

The vote was 5 to 4, with an unusual coalition in dissent. The court’s three most conservative members — Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch — filed a dissent saying they would have let stand, for now at least, an appeals court order that left the law in place while the case moved forward. Justice Elena Kagan, a liberal, also said she would have let the order stand, though she did not join the dissent and gave no reasons of her own.

CNN: Supreme Court investigators seeking cell phone records and affidavits from law clerks.

Lawyers outside the court who have become aware of the new inquiries related to cell phone details warn of potential intrusiveness on clerks' personal activities, irrespective of any disclosure to the news media, and say they may feel the need to obtain independent counsel.

"That's what similarly situated individuals would do in virtually any other government investigation," said one appellate lawyer with experience in investigations and knowledge of the new demands on law clerks. "It would be hypocritical for the Supreme Court to prevent its own employees from taking advantage of that fundamental legal protection."

Empirical SCOTUS: Who are the most frequent dissenters at SCOTUS?

The New York Times: How politicians and policymakers are misreading SCOTUS gun-control caselaw.

Politico: Court battles over ballots in Pennsylvania Republican primary.