Wisconsin Criminal Law & Process – Page 26 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Favorite Wisconsin Cases to Teach: State v. Oakley

Post author:David R. Papke
Post published:February 14, 2009
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Family Law Wisconsin Criminal Law & Process Wisconsin Supreme Court

It’s unusual for a law review in one state to devote an issue to a decision from the supreme court of another state, but that’s exactly what happened when the Western New England Law Review published a 2004 symposium issue concerning State v. Oakley, 629 N.W.2d 200 (Wis. 2001). I personally welcome the opportunity to teach and, in the process, critique the decision.

The case involved David Oakley, who fathered nine children with four women and was impossibly behind on his child support payments. Manitowoc County Circuit Court Judge Fred Hazlewood placed Oakley on probation following his conviction for refusing to support his children. However, the probation was conditioned on Oakley having no more children until he could support the ones he already had. A four-judge majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court confirmed Hazlewood’s order.

Commentators predictably discussed the decision’s ramifications for the right to procreate and the larger right to privacy.

Community Justice in Wisconsin

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:February 13, 2009
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Milwaukee Speakers at Marquette Wisconsin Criminal Law & Process

I am looking forward to the Law School’s 2009 Public Service Conference, which will address “The Future of Community Justice in Wisconsin.” Organized by our Assistant Dean for Public Service, Dan Idzikowski, the Conference will take place on Friday, February 20. Dan has supplied the following post to explain the significance of “community justice” and why it is such an important topic today, particularly for anyone interested in the fairness and effectiveness of the criminal justice system:

Community justice councils, or criminal justice coordinating councils, have been established in several communities across Wisconsin. These councils bring together key local decision-makers to address the coordination, cost, and effectiveness of the criminal justice system in their area. Milwaukee County, which has the State’s largest concentration of offenders and criminal justice resources, recently established its own Community Justice Council. Remarkably, this council has brought together leadership across the political spectrum to address crime and corrections in the Milwaukee area. The Marquette Law School Public Service conference is designed to support this collaboration and bring together criminal justice experts to lend their counsel to these efforts. For example, Jeremy Travis, the keynote speaker, is the President of the preeminent John Jay School of Criminal Justice at the City University of New York, the former director of the National Institute of Justice at the U.S. Justice Department, and the author of several books and studies on community corrections and reentry issues.

Why is community justice a critical public issue at this time? The past two decades have seen an explosion in Wisconsin’s prison and jail populations. Since 1990 over a dozen new state-operated correctional facilities were brought on line, and existing institutions were expanded. The cost of providing corrections services in Wisconsin grew from $178.4 million in 1990, to $583.4 million in 2000, to $1.2 billion in the current biennium.

I Refer to the Woman with Whom You Have a Child But Who Is Not Your Wife (Hereafter “Baby Mama”)

Post author:Richard M. Esenberg
Post published:January 23, 2009
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Race & Law Wisconsin Court System Wisconsin Criminal Law & Process

Perhaps Professor O’Hear can straighten me out on this.

The decision of a divided Court of Appeals setting aside the sentence of Landray Harris has gotten a fair amount of play in the blogs and on talk radio. Put briefly, the court vacated the sentence because the sentencing judge, apparently frustrated by the defendant’s failure to get a job, referred to the defendant’s “baby mama” (who supports him) and wondered how “you guys” (referring to one out of four defendants who appeared before the court) find women who are willing to support them in idleness. One of the area’s most prominent African-American defense attorneys has come to the defense of the sentencing judge, suggesting that his comments grew out of conversations that they had over the years about the puzzling ability of ne’er-do-wells to find women who enable them.

MULS alum Tom Foley is derisive of the critics, suggesting that they have failed to understand the proper standard for evaluating such matters. He points out that the majority asked whether the sentencing remarks could suggest to a reasonable observer or a “reasonable person in the position of the defendant that the court was improperly considering Harris’s race?” Thus, Tom argues, the question to be answered is not what, say, Jeff Wagner would make of the judge’s remarks but how they would be perceived by an African-American defendant.