Wisconsin Law & Legal System – Page 76 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Justice Involves Communities

Post author:Daniel A. Idzikowski
Post published:March 1, 2009
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Speakers at Marquette Wisconsin Criminal Law & Process

This past week, the 2009 Marquette Law School Public Service Conference focused on the efforts of communities across the nation to rethink criminal justice policy with a greater emphasis on community involvement in both planning and implementation. Over the past two decades, Wisconsin has more than quintupled its public expenditures for corrections. At the same time, local communities have struggled with increasing jail populations and declining resources for treatment and reentry services. At the core of this challenge is the desire to keep communities safe while providing more effective alternatives to long term incarceration.

These challenges are not unique to Wisconsin. As keynote speaker Jeremy Travis pointed out,

As our nation has reacted to rising crime rates over the years, the response of many elected officials has been to turn to the funnel [arrest, prosecution and incarceration,] as a crime control strategy. . . . We have invested enormous sums of money in these crime control strategies, with profound consequences. . . . Most strikingly, the national rate of incarceration has more than quadrupled over the past generation so that America now has the highest rate of incarceration in the world.

This approach has been accompanied by a drop in the crime rate. It also has had other sociological consequences which are not as easily quantifiable.

Favorite Wisconsin Cases to Teach: State v. Stewart

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:February 26, 2009
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Wisconsin Criminal Law & Process Wisconsin Supreme Court

Kodanko waits alone for the bus in a three-sided plexiglass bus shelter in downtown Milwaukee. Three men approach. Stewart and Moore enter the bus shelter, while their companion, Levy, remains outside. They block Kodanko’s exit from the shelter. Stewart says to Kodanko, “Give us some change, man.” When Kodanko refuses, Stewart repeats his request three or four time in an increasingly loud voice. Stewart then begins to reach into his coat. Moore says, “Put that gun away.” At the same time, Levy enters the shelter and tells his companions, “Let’s go.” The three of them enter a restaurant across the street. Moore returns a few minutes later to make small talk with Kodanko. In due course, the police arrest Stewart for attempted robbery. But was it really a robbery attempt, or just aggressive panhandling?

This is the subject of State v. Stewart, 420 N.W.2d 44 (Wis. 1988), which I teach in my Criminal Law course. The case resonates with me on several different levels.

Okay, Judge, You Hit Your Number or Die in This Room*

Post author:Richard M. Esenberg
Post published:February 19, 2009
Post category:First Amendment Judges & Judicial Process Political Processes & Rhetoric Western District of Wisconsin Wisconsin Court System

Much of the attention following yesterday’s decision in Siefert v. Alexander focuses upon the invalidation of prohibitions against judges or judicial candidates belonging to political parties and endorsing partisan candidates for office. That part of Judge Crabb’s decision seems to me, given the balance between regulatory interests and the protection of speech struck by the United States Supreme Court in Republican Party v. White, to be clearly correct.

And not, in my view, very momentous. Many judges have prejudicial partisan affiliations and, in highly salient elections, it is not hard for the public to discern whether a candidate is a Republican or Democrat. In fact, one could argue that allowing candidates to claim partisan affiliation is a relatively efficient way to provide pertinent information to voters in campaigns where discussion of the issues is difficult and often cramped by legal and customary restrictions. It’s not that we expect judges to rule in whatever way their party wants (although, as Judge Crabb points out, the prior partisan affiliation of federal judges is strongly correlated with voting patterns), but that partisan affiliation may tell us something (admittedly broad and general) about a candidate’s judicial philosophy.

More significant, it seems to me, is that part of the decision striking down the Code of Judicial Conduct’s prohibition against the personal solicitation of funds by judges and judicial candidates.