Criminal Law & Process – Page 42 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Lewd and Lascivious Behavior Laws: A Milwaukee Story

Post author:Irene Ten Cate
Post published:November 11, 2013
Post category:Civil Rights Constitutional Law Criminal Law & Process Milwaukee Public Wisconsin Criminal Law & Process Wisconsin Law & Legal System

The Accused

Lee Erickson’s bio attests to his national prominence. Among other things, he served on the Choral Panel of the National Endowment of the Arts and as dean of the American Guild of Organists. But in Milwaukee, he is best known as the conductor of the chorus of the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra (MSO). Erickson was appointed associate director of the MSO Chorus in 1978, and he has served as the chorus’s director since 1994. By all accounts, the group has flourished under his leadership. The MSO website quotes music director Edo de Waart as saying: “The MSO has the good fortune of having a first-class volunteer chorus. With a chorus of this caliber, the options for performing great works in the repertoire are immense.” Frequent guest conductor Nicholas McGegan has called the chorus “a real gem,” and Tom Strini of the ThirdCoast Digest referred to it as “the jewel in Milwaukee’s cultural crown.”

If you type Erickson’s name into the Google search box, however, these achievements aren’t among the first results that appear on your screen.

Nancy King to Speak at Marquette on Punishment for Repeat Offenders

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:November 4, 2013
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Public Speakers at Marquette

I’m looking forward to this year’s Barrock Lecture on Criminal Law, which will be delivered by Professor Nancy King of Vanderbilt Law School on November 18. King has long been one of my favorite writers on criminal procedure and sentencing. Whatever the topic, she can always be counted on to bring a refreshingly commonsensical perspective to bear.

King’s Lecture will focus on the sentencing of recidivists. Here’s the description:

Courts and legislatures today routinely authorize punishment for repeat offenders that is far more severe than the punishment assigned those convicted for the first time. This reliance upon criminal history when setting sentences has a surprisingly fascinating history. It also has an uncertain future. Recent constitutional rulings may threaten established procedures for assessing sentences for prior offenders; researchers continue to question the relationship between criminal history and either culpability or future dangerousness; and commentators disagree whether using criminal history to calibrate punishment entrenches racial disparity in sentencing or, rather, helps to avoid it. Professor King will address these and related issues as she discusses the ongoing challenge of punishing recidivists in the 21st century.

The Lecture, which is open to the public, will start at 4:30 in Eckstein Hall. Registration information and other details are available here.

Nationally, Police Get Good Marks From Citizens; Locally, We’ll Soon Find Out

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:November 3, 2013
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Milwaukee Public Race & Law

Last week, the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission announced that it would conduct its first survey of citizen satisfaction with the police. The results should provide us with helpful new ways to evaluate the Milwaukee Police Department’s performance and identify areas in need of improvement.

Unfortunately, media coverage provides a very distorted picture of police-citizen interactions. What makes the news, of course, are the incidents in which officers become violent or exhibit extreme callousness. When video is available of such incidents, as is increasingly common, the disturbing images may be repeated endlessly on TV or circulate virally on social media. Viewers may be left with the impression that such incidents are the norm. However, the vast majority of police-citizen interactions occur without anything newsworthy happening. Among other things, the Fire and Police Commission’s new survey should give us a much better sense of what happens in the more routine interactions and how those interactions affect public perceptions of the police.

Although data of this sort have not been available for Milwaukee specifically, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics did sponsor a national survey in 2011 regarding police-citizens interactions. The results, released in two reports earlier this fall, indicate a remarkably high level of citizen satisfaction, even among the minority groups who seem to bear the brunt of the high-profile incidents of police misconduct.