Welcome Our January Bloggers!

Headshot of attorney Daniel Murphy standing in front of a window.
Attorney Daniel Murphy
Student Foley Van Lieshout

We start off the new year with two guest bloggers.

Our Student Blogger for the month of January is Foley Van Lieshout. Foley is a current 1L at Marquette University Law School. She graduated cum laude from Lawrence University in June 2018. She majored in English with a minor in Creative Writing. Ten of her relatives attended Marquette University Law School, but she is the first guest blogger of the family. Foley hopes to focus her studies on criminal law and litigation while at Marquette. She is currently a member of the MULS Association for Women Lawyers and the Federalist Society.

Our Alumni Blogger for the month of January is Daniel Murphy, a recent graduate of Marquette University Law School. Dan provides the following self-introduction:

“After graduating from Marquette Law School in 2016, I was hired  by the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office.  I had participated in the Prosecutor Clinic there working in the Violent Crimes Unit on Drug Team 1 assigned to Judge Timothy Witkowiak’s court. As a newly minted Assistant District Attorney I was fortunate to start in that same position. Judge Witkowiak rotated in January of 2017.  Since that time, I’ve practiced in front of Judge Janet Protasiewicz.  As a member of the Drug Unit, I prosecute felony level drug and gun crimes. My job mainly consists of charging cases, reviewing search warrants, providing discovery, and litigating motions and trials.  My case load fluctuates but is typically around 90 cases. In addition to my normal responsibilities, I’m lucky to have had the opportunity to work closely with a group of officers assigned to the Milwaukee Metropolitan Drug Enforcement Group. Those officers work longer term, more complex investigations.  Through that portion of my work I’ve rode along with officers for take downs and search warrants, I work with the officers on planning investigations, and I help wade through legal issues that crop up during the investigations. I thoroughly enjoy being an ADA in the Violent Crimes Unit.  The work is challenging and exciting.  My colleagues at the DA’s office are excellent attorneys and supportive teammates.  I’ve learned an enormous amount about criminal prosecution in my short time there. My personal life has also seen a significant change since graduating law school with the birth of my son, our first.  And life continues to get more (happily) complicated as my wife and I are expecting our second child, a girl, any day now.  We are very happy with our small but growing family and fortunate to have the support of many close friends and family.”

Welcome! We look forward to starting off 2019 with your posts.

Continue ReadingWelcome Our January Bloggers!

Racial Discrimination in Wisconsin Jury Pool Practices

A courtroom is filled with women dressed in long black dresses and wearing hats.
Crowd of women register for jury duty after gaining the right to vote, Portland, Oregon, 1912.

“It requires little knowledge of human nature to anticipate that those who had long been regarded as an inferior and subject race would, when suddenly raised to the rank of citizenship, be looked upon with jealousy and positive dislike, and that state laws might be enacted or enforced to perpetuate the distinctions that had before existed.” – Strauder v. West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303, 306 (1879)

As ominously foreshadowed by the Supreme Court in 1879, current state and federal laws and practices continuously present disadvantages to people of color. Removed from enslavement and the oppressive nature of the Jim Crow Era, today many of the participants in our justice system and in politics are blind to discrepancies within this nation’s criminal justice system and erroneously believe that the black defendant enjoys the same rights as the white defendant.  The black defendant is seldom given a jury that racially represents him or her, and this lack of representation is a product of case precedent, judicial reasoning, and discriminatory practices. In Wisconsin, these discriminatory practices take the form of both state and federal jury pooling procedures. As such, the purpose of this blog post is to draw attention to the disproportionate jury pooling practices in Wisconsin circuit courts as well as federal district courts in our state, and to provide a forum for debate on this important issue.

Federal Jury Pooling in Wisconsin and the Depleted African American Voting Population

The right to a jury is so critical to the makeup of our system of justice that the Constitution mentions juries in four different sections. However, while individuals have a constitutional right to a jury, the pooling and selection of such juries is not always constitutionally executed. Both the Eastern and Western District Courts of Wisconsin have jury pooling practices that raise constitutional concerns due to the disproportional impact that those practices have on black criminal defendants.

Continue ReadingRacial Discrimination in Wisconsin Jury Pool Practices

Meet Our December Guest Blogger

Photo headshot of attorney Nicole Muller.We are pleased to welcome Nicole Muller as our Alumni Blogger for the month of December.

Attorney Nicole A. Muller, of Birdsall Law Offices, S.C., graduated from Marquette University Law School in May 2018, and now spends her hours zealously advocating for her clients as a private criminal defense attorney. Before coming to Milwaukee, she received a Bachelors Degree in Political Science and Studio Art from The Catholic University of America and a Masters Degree from Columbia University. During her time at Marquette, Attorney Muller worked on issues surrounding the impact  that cash bail programs have on Milwaukee’s and Wisconsin’s  urban poor, as well as ways to address racial discrepancies in American courtrooms.  A native of New York,  Attorney Muller states that she decided to stay and practice law in Wisconsin because “the beer was just too good to leave behind . . . oh, and due to the serious issues that need to be addressed within the criminal ‘justice’ systems of Milwaukee and greater Wisconsin.”

We look forward to reading your posts!

Continue ReadingMeet Our December Guest Blogger