On Wednesday, the Chilean students began their day with Professor Irene Calboli, who spoke to them about the experience of being trained in a civil law tradition only then to work in a common law system. The students also discovered a common interest in patent law and the conversation soon turned to that topic.
The Hurtado students then met individually with professors on their research topics.
Yesterday was another full day for the Chilean students visiting from Hurtado University Law School. In the morning, alumn Reyna Morales gave a talk in Spanish on criminal procedure and law. Afterwards, MULS Professors Tom Hammer, Michael O’Hear, Chad Oldfather, Dan Blinka, and Greg O’Meara, S.J., participated in a Q&A panel. The Chilean students came prepared with a range of questions dealing with the types of legal defenses available to defendants, the rights of juveniles, and issues of due process in Guantanamo, among other topics.
In the afternoon, we drove to Madison to visit Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson at the State Capitol, accompanied by former Supreme Court Justice and MULS professor Janine Geske. The Chief Justice greeted the delegation in the hallways of the Capitol, and then invited the members to sit in the Supreme Court Hearing Room to offer an overview of the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s work. With warm humor, the Chief Justice then answered the many questions that the Chilean students posed.
One student asked if the justices are ever influenced by their political affiliations when they write their decisions. The Chief explained that they do not work as Democrats or Republicans, but rather as “reasonable” people. That said, the students were curious about the election process and how judges are selected. The Chief Justice noted that she has sat on the bench for more than 30 years and joked that she plans on running in 2019, but unopposed. She clarified that, unlike other political campaigners, the judicial candidates only promise to uphold the law. She then turned to point to the mural above the bench of the founding fathers signing our national Constitution. The image is there to remind us that the justices take an “oath of office” to uphold the highest law. The Chief escorted the group to the conference room, where she shared the process for selecting who would write the majority opinion: chess pieces!
The Wisconsin Law Journal covered the event, so stay tuned for pictures.
Last week I had the honor of joining my colleague Janine Geske on her regular journey to Green Bay Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison reminiscent of the prison in Shawshank Redemption. The prisoners at Green Bay run the gamut of serious crimes from sexual assault to drug distribution to armed robbery to homicide. Janine runs a three-day session on restorative justice, meeting with about twenty prisoners as part of a several-month program on the challenges and possibilities faced by these men. She has been running this program here for years as part of our Restorative Justice Initiative, and I was so excited to finally fit this in my schedule. Having done this trip last week and then spent the past weekend in services for Rosh Hashanah, I have had plenty of time to reflect on crime, punishment, repentence, and redemption. In retrospect, I don’t know that I could have timed this better. Suffice it to say, the experience was amazing.
First, let me set the stage.