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Get the latest news and research from Badger Institute
- To what extent are school districts losing teachers they want?
- Why the Badger Institute supports AB1 and reversing the DPI testing charade
- Wisconsin student enrollment and teacher staffing trends
- Legislators want to give tens of millions of free lunches to students who don’t need them
- Founding Fathers would cheer Trump Administration’s concern about federal grants
- Supreme battle shaping up over voter ID
- Emergency ended; so should federal spending spree, says Johnson
- The naked truth about Wisconsin’s crazy meth infestation
Browsing: Courts
Wisconsin voters will on the same day this April choose a new state Supreme Court justice and also decide whether the state’s voter ID law will become part of the state Constitution.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court issued only 14 decisions during its most recent term, roughly one-third or less than any other term in at least the last 50 years.
The median time it takes to close out felony criminal cases is down 5% from 2022 to 2023, and the median misdemeanor criminal case is reaching a conclusion 2% faster, according to figures from the Wisconsin Court System.
While Wisconsin rarely prosecutes possession or sale of larger amounts of marijuana, some municipalities are much more likely than others to prosecute less serious violations.
Specialized docket wins bipartisan support but faces a changed Supreme Court Advocates for a business court system operating since 2017…
It is imperative the specialized dockets for commercial cases be created in order for swifter and more certain justice to prevail.
There is a real possibility for cannabis reform to result in public safety gains for the Badger State but the tradeoffs that must be accepted are a significant reduction in safety on the state’s highways and roads and an increase in minor property and nuisance crimes near cannabis dispensaries if the state were to establish a commercial market for either medical or adult-use products.
According to a Marquette Law School poll last fall, 64% of registered Wisconsin voters, and 43% of Republicans, favor full legalization. Thirty percent of Wisconsinites and 50% of Republicans think it should remain illegal. Only 6% of registered voters say they just don’t know.
Many counties in Wisconsin have essentially decriminalized the possession or sale of marijuana, or cannabis, as it now often is known, and the relatively few people who are charged criminally in other counties are ever incarcerated.
Partisans are actively hoping Janet Protasiewicz will have a role in casting a decisive vote on redistricting, school choice, voter ID and even rolling back Gov. Scott Walker’s Act 10, prohibiting collective bargaining for most state employees.
Wisconsin needs an explicit constitutional amendment to rein in gubernatorial goofiness
Our governor, you likely have heard by now, is the talk of the nation for using his unique veto power to essentially try to lock in tax increases and big spending until sometime close to Armageddon.
Governor Evers signed a budget passed by the Legislature that includes a more than 30% starting pay raise for assistant district attorneys and assistant public defenders and more flexibility for merit-based pay raises for attorneys currently in those roles. This makes the compensation for these roles more competitive and should reduce the high rates of turnover currently existing in District Attorney and public defender offices.
Wisconsinites clearly got some wins in the 2023-2025 biennel budget. Now the task at hand is consolidate and expand those moving forward.
The Badger Institute on Wednesday praised action by the Legislature’s budget writing committee to raise pay for prosecutors and public defenders, a move the Institute has been advocating for nearly a year.
The bare-knuckle, politicized State Supreme Court race that just shattered national spending records and obliterated traditional judicial norms has raised anew the question of whether justices should be elected the same way as partisan Republicans and Democrats. Alternatives in use in other states include appointments and independent commissions.
Wisconsin’s current expungement statute is flawed. It forces judges to make poor decisions with limited information, encourages uneven and often nonsensical administration of justice, and does little to help employers, victims, or low-level, non-violent offenders we should all want in jobs rather than cells.
Public safety is a foundational requirement for prosperity in our communities. This means that fully funding the various systems that ensure public safety is a requirement, not a political preference. That’s why individuals from the most progressive to the most conservative agree these agencies should function effectively.
Know what puts a crimp in any effort to fight crime? Not being able to do anything with suspects once the cops catch them.
Wisconsin’s criminal justice system must first and foremost work to reduce crime, improve public safety and achieve justice for victims.
The Badger State remains, on the whole, a safe place that’s been getting safer. But Wisconsinites who live and work in Milwaukee have seen dramatic increases in homicide, auto theft and aggravated assault. For some specific offenses, other Wisconsin cities are also seeing worsening trends.
It now takes, on average, more than 15 months to fully resolve, from arrest to closed case, a homicide charge in Wisconsin. Armed robbery takes a year and sexual assault cases average 14 months.