{"id":7806,"date":"2009-11-03T15:23:21","date_gmt":"2009-11-03T20:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=7806"},"modified":"2009-11-03T15:30:43","modified_gmt":"2009-11-03T20:30:43","slug":"pondering-the-wisconsin-supreme-courts-criminal-docket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2009\/11\/pondering-the-wisconsin-supreme-courts-criminal-docket\/","title":{"rendered":"Pondering the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s Criminal Docket"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, I was delighted to participate in the Conference on the Wisconsin Supreme Court <\/a>organized by Rick Esenberg.\u00a0 The panel I moderated reviewed some of the court’s most significant criminal cases last term.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 The court seems to be operating more in an error-correction mode than a law-declaration mode.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 (Indeed, an exception to this trend, State v. Ferguson, <\/em>767 N.W.2d 187, drew a sharp rebuke from Justice Bradley, who characterized the majority decision as “an unbridled exercise of power.”)\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Fans of judicial minimalism should be happy with the court’s recent criminal decisions.\u00a0 So should fans of judicial collegiality: the court’s minimalist holdings\u00a0produce few dissenting votes and (Bradley’s shot notwithstanding) a generally respectful tone in the few dissenting opinions.\u00a0 I wonder, though,\u00a0if all of this minimalism and case-specific analysis provides sufficient clarity in the law\u00a0for the police officers, lawyers, and trial-court judges working in the trenches of the criminal-justice system.\u00a0 Though much in vogue now, minimalism has its vices, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Last week, I was delighted to participate in the Conference on the Wisconsin Supreme Court organized by Rick Esenberg.\u00a0 The panel I moderated reviewed some of the court’s most significant criminal cases last term.\u00a0 But “most significant” is a relative term, and I don’t think any of the panelists found the court’s recent criminal cases 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