WJI's Daily Reads for July 18, 2022

Kenosha News: Kenosha County approves repeal of weapons ban.

Guns and electronic control devices will be allowed in most Kenosha County buildings after the 14-7 vote. The board also voted 15-6 to declare the county a sanctuary for Second Amendment rights, opposing any state or federal legislation enacted that would infringe residents’ right to bear arms.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Grafton dentist gets 4-1/2 years in federal prison for fraud scheme involving breaking patients' teeth to recover insurance money for crowns.

Madison.com: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos ordered to produce more records and pay attorney's fees of American Oversight.

APG Wisconsin: Wisconsin Court of Appeals says lawsuit claiming sexual assault of child by coach is timely.

In May 2021, Circuit Judge Rhonda Lanford dismissed that last claim, finding that state law required it to be filed within three years, though she noted that as a minor at the time of the incidents, the woman had until she was 20. At the time the woman first filed her lawsuit she was 34.

But a three-judge panel of the state appeals court, led by Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg, disagreed, finding that under state law, in actions related to violations of state laws involving child sexual assault, the woman had until she was 35 to file her lawsuit.

Associated Press: Investigative report on Uvalde school shooting notes multiple errors.

Nearly 400 law enforcement officials rushed to a mass shooting at a Uvalde elementary school, but “egregiously poor decision-making” resulted in more than an hour of chaos before the gunman who took 21 lives was finally confronted and killed, according to a damning investigative report released Sunday.

The nearly 80-page report was the first to criticize both state and federal law enforcement, and not just local authorities in the South Texas town for the bewildering inaction by heavily armed officers as a gunman fired inside two fourth-grade classrooms at Robb Elementary School, killing 19 students and two teachers.

West Virginia Record: Attorney says West Virginia judge wore gun in holster during trial then pulled it out and pointed it at attorneys during a hearing.

“As Judge (David) Hummel reached for his firearm, he said, ‘Aren’t me and my guns and security enough?’ (Attorney Lauren) Varnado’s affidavit states. “’My guns are bigger than your security’s guns!’ He pointed the barrel of the gun – first, at the table where defendants’ counsel, David Dehoney and Jennifer Hicks, were seated, and then, at the podium where I was standing.

“Judge Hummel then set his gun down on the judicial bench and deliberately rotated the firearm (as it laid on the bench) until the barrel of the gun was pointing directly at me.”

Reuters: Report shows how money making perpetuates mass incarceration.

An obscure web of bureaucracy incentivizes local officials around the U.S. to jail more people in order to generate revenue, rather than advance public safety, according to a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice.

Those perverse incentives have created what researchers referred to as a “market in incarcerated people,” an industrial complex that transforms humans into objects of trade and advances mass incarceration.

Vera Institute of Justice: Not enough people were released from custody during the pandemic.

Vera research has shown that jail and prison populations decreased by 14 percent nationwide at the beginning of the pandemic. But releases actually decreased over time afterward. Parole boards granted fewer releases and, alarmingly, fewer people were released from prisons overall in 2020 than in 2019. The way releases were carried out also showed disparities. Women experienced significantly larger drops in incarceration rates than men, and eligibility criteria in certain places—like Arkansas—deepened racial inequity, with white people benefiting disproportionately from early release. By the winter of 2021 and into 2022, most release efforts had reversed or stalled, with jail and prison populations rebounding toward or surpassing pre-pandemic levels.

This is the chilling yet unsurprising state of things, given that jails and prisons are at odds with public health.