WJI's Daily Reads for Mar. 31, 2022

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Assembly Speaker Robin Vos held in contempt for not releasing records.

Dane County Judge Valerie Bailey-Rihn determined the Rochester Republican and the Assembly as a whole adopted "a collective and abject disregard for the court’s order" from four months ago to turn over documents sought by the liberal group American Oversight under the state's open records law.

She ordered Vos and the Assembly to turn over records within 14 days and to each pay $1,000 per day if they fail to do that. They will also have to pay some of American Oversight's legal bills.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee County youth services are strained due to lack of action on Lincoln Hills closure.

The county's Vel Phillips Center is overcrowded, rehabilitation programs have long waiting lists, and — some worry — more youths are going unsupervised, during a time of rising car thefts and reckless driving.

Judges are now sending an increasing number of youths to Lincoln Hills, even as the legality of doing so is unclear.

Some judges have expressed uncertainty about whether the legislation creating a deadline to close Lincoln Hills precludes them from sending kids to the facility — even as the new, smaller facilities meant to house them in their communities do not yet exist.

CNBC: Republican Sen. Susan Collins says she'll vote to approve Ketanji Brown Jackson's nomination to U.S. Supreme Court.

NBC: President Joe Biden signs Emmett Till Antilynching Act making lynching a federal hate crime.

CNN: Connecticut judge holds Alex Jones in contempt for refusing to be deposed in defamation suit brought against him by families of Sandy Hook shooting victims. 

At the same time that Jones' attorneys were arguing during a hearing last week that their client was not well enough to sit for a deposition and was under doctor's orders not to leave his home, he was hosting a live show on his Infowars website at a studio away from home, his attorneys confirmed in a court filing.

Reuters: ACLU and NAACP sue South Carolina to end ban on data scraping of electronic court records.