Wisconsin Supreme Court Accepts State v. Hoppe for Review, on Plea Colloquy Issues

Supreme Court sealBeginning with this post, I will report here when the Wisconsin Supreme Court accepts new cases for review. I invite your comments.

Last week the Wisconsin Supreme Court voted to accept State v. Hoppe for review.  The issue presented, according the court’s press release, is “the extent to which a judge may rely on the contents of a plea questionnaire and waiver of rights form” in lieu of questioning the defendant on the record.  

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The Culpability of Passive Abuse

Last Friday, a Brooklyn mother was convicted of manslaughter in an infamous case that has, once again, led to soul-searching and overhaul of New York City’s child welfare system.  What is remarkable about this case is that the mother never struck a single blow; rather, her 7-year-old daughter was beaten to death by her stepfather.  Seven months ago, the stepfather was similarly convicted, and he is currently serving 26 1/3 to 29 years in prison.  Ironically, the mother could end up serving much more time than that, because she was also convicted of assault, unlawful imprisonment, and endangering the welfare of a child.

As any child advocate will tell you, the facts of cases such as this one are horrifyingly familiar: brutal beatings and sadistic tortures by one adult (in this case, the little girl was tied to chairs, held under cold water, and forced to use a litter box instead of a toilet), chilling acquiescence by another adult, and mistake after mistake by whatever public agency is supposed to prevent this kind of thing by early intervention into suspicious circumstances.  Nearly two decades ago another notorious New York case, which involved the beating death of another little girl, triggered a national discussion about accountability and responsibility on the part of the “passive” parent.  In that case, 6-year-old Lisa Steinberg was beaten unconscious by Joel Steinberg (who had illegally adopted her) while Steinberg’s partner, Hedda Nussbaum (pictured above), was in the next room.  Steinberg left the apartment for three hours, leaving the girl unconscious, and Hedda did not call for help until the next morning, when the child stopped breathing.  In the Steinberg case, though, Joel was convicted of the killing while all charges were ultimately dropped against Hedda.

Why the difference in outcomes? 

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Responding to Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice System

The Sentencing Project has just published a new edition of Reducing Racial Disparity in the Criminal Justice System, a manual for policymakers that describes numerous best practices for addressing disparities.  This publication should be of particular interest in Milwaukee and Wisconsin, which have some of the worst criminal justice disparities in the nation.  As The Sentencing Project described in a May publication, blacks in Milwaukee are seven times more likely than whites to be arrested for a drug offense, the second-highest such disparity among the forty-three major American cities analyzed.  Similarly, a state-level analysis by Human Rights Watch determined that blacks in Wisconsin are forty-two times more likely than whites to receive a prison term for a drug conviction, the highest such disparity among the thirty-four states studied.

Of course, to say that there are racial disparities is not to say the disparities are necessarily unwarranted.  For instance, if it turned out that blacks committed serious drug crimes more frequently than whites, then at least some of statistical disparities might be warranted.  Still, the magnitude of the racial disparities in Milwaukee and Wisconsin is so high, particularly in comparison to national norms, that there is good reason to believe we do indeed have a serious problem.

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