Wisconsin Law & Legal System – Page 67 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

The Verdict? A Very Successful Civil Trial Conference

Post author:Daniel D. Blinka
Post published:November 9, 2009
Post category:Evidence Federal Civil Litigation Marquette Law School Wisconsin Civil Litigation

One of this Law School’s most noteworthy legacies is its production of many of the region’s most outstanding trial lawyers. The legacy was fully evident on Friday, November 6, 2009 at the Civil Trial Evidence and Litigation Conference. The sold-out event served as a “last call for Sensenbrenner Hall” of sorts while featuring a panel that well-represented the many fine trial lawyers who have distinguished themselves as Marquette lawyers. It was my privilege to help organize the conference along with Pat Dunphy (L’76), who conceived of the idea and was the key to assembling the talented panel of Marquette alumni. In light of Friday’s success, Pat and I have already begun discussing next year’s civil litigation conference, which will be held in the Law School’s new venue in Eckstein Hall.

The presentations spanned a broad array of issues and problems regularly confronted in civil litigation. The strength of the presentations rested not just in their discussion of doctrine and rules, but in the panelists bringing to bear their experience and insights in preparing and trying cases. Links to the written CLE material and the accompanying PowerPoint presentations will be posted on the Law School’s website later this week.

Starting the day was Michael J. Cohen (L’86) of Meissner Tierney Fisher & Nichols SC, who underscored the important relationship between pretrial practice and outcomes at trial. Drawing on his extensive experience as a commercial litigator, Mike addressed the duty to preserve evidence, especially electronic information, when a lawsuit appears on the horizon. Mike emphasized the need to work with the client to understand what the law requires so that discoverable information is not destroyed, inadvertently or otherwise, thereby exposing the client (or counsel) to sanctions. Pat Dunphy (L’76) of Cannon & Dunphy SC, addressed a different aspect of pretrial practice, namely, the creative use of requests to admit during discovery. Pat described how he used requests to admit to obtain a binding judicial admission in a major product liability case that proved determinative of its outcome.

Pondering the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s Criminal Docket

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:November 3, 2009
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Wisconsin Criminal Law & Process Wisconsin Supreme Court

Last week, I was delighted to participate in the Conference on the Wisconsin Supreme Court organized by Rick Esenberg. The panel I moderated reviewed some of the court’s most significant criminal cases last term. But “most significant” is a relative term, and I don’t think any of the panelists found the court’s recent criminal cases to offer anything especially bold or innovative. The court seems to be operating more in an error-correction mode than a law-declaration mode. Recent decisions generally do not announce new rules of law, but operate within established legal frameworks and decide cases based on the particularities of the facts presented. (Indeed, an exception to this trend, State v. Ferguson, 767 N.W.2d 187, drew a sharp rebuke from Justice Bradley, who characterized the majority decision as “an unbridled exercise of power.”) Notably absent is the “new federalism” exhibited in some earlier terms, in which the court interprets state constitutional rights in ways that are more protective than the analogous federal rights.

Fans of judicial minimalism should be happy with the court’s recent criminal decisions. So should fans of judicial collegiality: the court’s minimalist holdings produce few dissenting votes and (Bradley’s shot notwithstanding) a generally respectful tone in the few dissenting opinions. I wonder, though, if all of this minimalism and case-specific analysis provides sufficient clarity in the law for the police officers, lawyers, and trial-court judges working in the trenches of the criminal-justice system. Though much in vogue now, minimalism has its vices, too.

Drug Courts after Twenty Years: What Next?

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:November 3, 2009
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Wisconsin Criminal Law & Process

I’ve been meaning to blog about the interesting new report from the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers on drug courts, but alum Tony Cotton (a member of the NACDL Board of Directors) has beaten me to the punch. (For my own take on drug courts — voicing some of the same concerns as Tony — see this recent article.) Tony offers these insightful and timely thoughts on drug courts:

This year marks the twentieth anniversary of a criminal justice innovation that was supposed to help solve the drug problem in this country and reduce the mass incarceration of men and women whose substance abuse habits lead them toward criminal behavior and, more often than not, to prison.

In 1989, then-State’s Attorney for Miami-Dade County, Florida (later United States Attorney General) Janet Reno designed a new approach to mitigate the crushing loads of drug-related criminal cases in South Florida. Defendants charged with low-level drug felonies would be diverted into treatment programs instead of prison. The idea caught on, and today there are 2,100 such “problem solving” courts around the country, receiving federal funds and dealing with not only drug abuse, but also drunk drivers and domestic violence offenders.