WJI's Daily Reads for Mar. 18, 2022

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.