Wisconsin Supreme Court – Page 22 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

What Do Offshore Wind Farms Have To Do With the Disintegration of Contract Law in Wisconsin?

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:April 1, 2010
Post category:Environmental Law Legal Scholarship Marquette Law School Wisconsin Law & Legal System Wisconsin Supreme Court

Answer: They are the subjects of this year’s top student comments in the Marquette Law Review. The winners of the Gold and Silver Quill Awards were announced at last week’s Law Review banquet. Marvin Bynum won the Gold for “Testing the Waters: Assessing Wisconsin’s Regulatory Climate for Offshore Wind Projects,” while Donald Stroud won the Silver for “Beyond Deception: Finding Prudential Boundaries between Breach of Contract and Deceptive Trade Practice Act Violations in Wisconsin.” Both papers are on SSRN; “Testing the Waters” is here, and “Beyond Deception” is here. The abstracts appear after the jump. Congratulations to Marvin and Tripp for this well-deserved recognition!

More Developments at the Wisconsin Supreme Court

Post author:Richard M. Esenberg
Post published:March 25, 2010
Post category:Wisconsin Supreme Court

I have to say that I was surprised by Justice Gableman’s decision to file a motion asking Justice Pat Crooks to recuse himself from his pending disciplinary case. I understand the rationale. Justice Crooks did make remarks pertaining to some of the issues in the disciplinary proceeding in the course of his writings in Allen v. State. Because he had not had the benefit of full briefing and oral argument, these comments might raise concern that he had prejudged the issue. His reference to the comments of Justice Gableman’s attorney and Justice Gableman’s failure to repudiate them might be seen as importing an extraneous matter into the disciplinary proceeding. What Jim Bopp said in the course of that proceeding and whether or not Justice Gableman denounces his comments has nothing to do with the issues in that proceeding which are limited to whether the Reuben Mitchell ad violated SCR 60.06(3)(c).

Judging Friday’s SCOWIS Decisions

Post author:Daniel Suhr
Post published:March 19, 2010
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Judges & Judicial Process Wisconsin Criminal Law & Process Wisconsin Supreme Court

On Friday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court released two opinions that reflect the court’s new jurisprudential direction. Allow me to focus on the opinion with a much greater discussion of jurisprudence. (The other is State v. Wood, a due process challenge to forced administration of medication in a state-administered facility to a person who had been found not guilty of a crime by reason of mental disease or defect.)

In State v. Smith, the Supreme Court upheld the state’s sex offender registration law for crimes which, in the particular instance, did not have an obvious sexual component. Smith had been convicted of false imprisonment of a minor, which is one of the crimes leading to sex offender registration. Smith brought as-applied equal protection and substantive due process challenges because his act of false imprisonment had no sexual motive or activity.