Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Starting the Conversation: Leaders Pledge Milwaukee-Chicago Economic Cooperation

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:July 17, 2012
Post category:Marquette Law School Milwaukee Public Speakers at Marquette

A majority of people in Wisconsin support the idea of more economic cooperation between Milwaukee and Chicago. A roster of major political and corporate leaders want to see more economic cooperation between Milwaukee and Chicago. A major international organization is urging more cooperation.

But will it happen?

That was the question hanging over a provocative and timely conference Tuesday in the Appellate Courtroom of Eckstein Hall. “Milwaukee’s Future in the Chicago Megacity” was sponsored by Marquette University Law School’s Lubar Fund for Public Policy Research and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Wisconsinites Like Truth-in-Sentencing . . . Sort Of

Post author:Michael M. O'Hear
Post published:July 17, 2012
Post category:Criminal Law & Process Marquette Law School Political Processes & Rhetoric Public Wisconsin Criminal Law & Process

The latest edition of the Marquette University Law School Poll includes some interesting data on sentencing policy. I’m grateful to Professor Charles Franklin for collaborating with me in putting the questions together. The results are here (note that the sentencing questions start at Q25a).

The primary purpose of the questions was to determine the attitudes of Wisconsinites toward truth-in-sentencing, which was adopted by the state legislature in 1998. The questions are timely in light of recent political debates over new early release opportunities for prison inmates, which were embraced by the legislature in 2009, but then repealed two years later. Early release undercuts truth-in-sentencing by introducing uncertainty into the actual date that inmates will be released. Indeed, critics of the 2009 reforms complained — in what was probably a bit of an overstatement — that the new early release mechanisms “gutted” truth-in-sentencing.

At first blush, the new poll seems to provide strong support for the 2011 repeal and the return to a purer form of truth-in-sentencing: a decisive 63% majority agreed that “truth in sentencing should continue to be the law in Wisconsin.” (25c) Moreover, only 27% agreed that “many of the people who are locked up in prison do not deserve to be there,” and only 37% agreed that “many of the people who are locked up in prison could be safely released without endangering the community.” (27d, e)

But the story is a little more complicated than might first appear.

Punishing Paterno

Post author:J. Gordon Hylton
Post published:July 16, 2012
Post category:Public Sports & Law

For the past several days, sports journalists, the callers to sports talk radio shows, and just about everyone else has weighed in on the appropriate way to punish Penn State for its failure to disclose the sexual crimes of assistant football coach Jerry Sandusky.

As the report prepared by former FBI director Louis Freeh makes clear, the late Joe Paterno, the long-time head coach of the Nittany Lions, was aware of Sandusky’s crimes, at least since 1998, and took numerous steps to prevent them from coming to light. Paterno passed away shortly after he was fired last fall when the enormity of Sandusky’s crimes was finally brought to light.

The current debate revolves around the appropriate penalty for Penn State for the misfeasance of Paterno and other university officials. Much of discussion has involved the question of whether or not Penn State is an appropriate candidate for the NCAA “death penalty,” i.e., the elimination of its football program for a period of years. Technically, this penalty is available only for schools that were already on NCAA probation, which Penn State was not; moreover, as the Journal Sentinel’s Michael Hunt and others have pointed out, draconian prospective punishments would most directly harm current players and new coach Bill O’Brien and his staff, none of whom were in any way responsible for the scandal.

I would like to propose the following as an appropriate punishment:

(1) Require Penn State to forfeit all its football victories since 1998 (or whenever Joe Paterno first learned of Sandusky’s crimes and decided not to report them). This would have the effect of removing Paterno’s name from the top of the list of college football coaches with the greatest number of victories. No longer would his name be in any way associated with the concept of coaching excellence, and it would be a meaningful punishment, especially for someone who is already dead.

(2) Require Paterno’s family to repay the more than $5 million dollar “retirement package” that Paterno negotiated while he was knowingly covering up Sandusky’s transgressions. The idea that the university is contractually obligated to make such payments is absurd, as is the idea that it would have agreed to such an arrangement had Paterno revealed that he had been covering up the heinous crimes of his pederast pal for more than a decade. The money can be used to support the victims of Sandusky’s crimes and Paterno’s indifference.

(3) Tear down the statue of Paterno that sits outside Beaver Stadium, the Penn State football field. If Paterno’s supporters in positions of power refuse to do so, then perhaps the good people of State College, Pennsylvania, will be inspired by the example of the residents of New York City in 1776, who on their own and in defiance of formal authority toppled the equestrian statue of King George III on Bowling Green and melted it down into slag.