Wisconsin Supreme Court May Rule On Paid-Sick-Day Ordinance

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Posted on 18th March 2010 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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The Wisconsin Supreme Court will be considering whether to rule on an appeal of Milwaukee’s paid-sick-day ordinance. http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/84754612.html

The District 4 Court of Appeals Thursday requested that the state’s highest court to handle the appeal, because of its importance. The Supreme Court will have to decide whether it wants to look at the case.

The Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce has challenged a city ordinance that mandates that workers receive paid sick days. The MMAC maintains that will make the city less competitive and stifle jobs.

Laws on paid sick days are also being considered in New York City and Tacoma, Wash.

The Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence and the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign both both support of the Milwaukee ordinance.

Convicted killer backs judge for Wis. high court

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Posted on 15th February 2009 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 2/14/2009

By RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press Writer

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Unsolicited praise from a convicted cop killer isn’t the kind of endorsement that a judge with a tough law enforcement stance wants.

But that’s what Jefferson County Judge Randy Koschnick got from former client Ted Oswald, a man convicted of killing a police captain in 1994. The judge is now seeking a position on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

In a letter sent from prison to The Associated Press, Oswald said Koschnick, his former public defender, did “exceedingly productive and good work” on his case in 1994 and 1995.

“If Judge Koschnick is selected for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, his voluminous first-hand knowledge of defense cases and the personalities of accused criminals would bestow to that court a fairer, more effective and more trustworthy perspective … .” Oswald wrote. “I only observed his practice on one case, but I would be inclined to see it his way.”

Oswald is serving a life prison term for killing a Waukesha police captain after robbing a bank with his father. Oswald, then 18, and his father were pulled over after the robbery and opened fire on police with semiautomatic rifles. They also took a woman hostage and injured two other officers before they were arrested.

Koschnick was assigned to represent Oswald along with colleague Samuel Benedict. They argued that Oswald’s abusive father brainwashed him into participating in the crime spree.

Koschnick’s defense of Oswald and his 14 years as a public defender before serving as a judge since 1999 have become an issue in his race against Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson in the April 7 election.

Although Koschnick’s campaign has been endorsed by police chiefs, sheriffs and district attorneys, critics, in the past, have successfully argued that the work of public defenders undermines that of law enforcement. Another public defender-turned-judge, former Justice Louis Butler, was defeated in his re-election bid last year by critics who said his background indicated he was soft on crime.

Koschnick predicted his critics would exploit Oswald’s case but said he was proud of his work as a defense attorney. Still, he didn’t return the convicted killer’s praise.

“He is free to say whatever he wants, but his endorsement is no honor to me,” the judge said in a statement.

Copyright 2009 The Associated Press.

Wis. judicial panel: Punish new judge for false ad

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Posted on 8th October 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 10/8/2008 3:51 AM

By RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press Writer

MADISON, Wis. (AP) _ State regulators say a Willie Horton-style campaign ad that suggested the first black member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court freed a child molester played so loose with the truth that the court’s newest member should be disciplined for it.

The Wisconsin Judicial Commission filed a complaint against Justice Michael Gableman on Tuesday, claiming he violated a rule that prohibits judicial candidates from knowingly misrepresenting facts about their opponents.

Gableman was the first challenger to defeat an incumbent justice in 41 years when he knocked off Louis Butler in the April election with 51 percent of the vote. Gableman, 42, joined the court for a 10-year term in August.

During the campaign, Gableman faced intense criticism from independent observers when his campaign ran a television ad that showed a picture of Butler, the state’s first black justice, next to a mug shot of convicted rapist Reuben Lee Mitchell, who is black. A narrator said: “Butler found a loophole. Mitchell went on to molest another child.”

When Butler was a public defender, he represented Mitchell on the appeal of his 1985 conviction for raping an 11-year-old girl.

Butler convinced an appeals court that Mitchell deserved a new trial because certain evidence should not have been allowed. The Supreme Court overturned that decision and Mitchell served his full sentence. After his release on parole in 1992, Mitchell was convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

Gableman knew those facts when he personally approved the ad, the complaint said. Therefore, he knew Butler was not responsible for Mitchell’s release from prison and subsequent criminal behavior as the ad suggested, it said.

“The misrepresentation was made knowingly or with reckless disregard for the truth by Judge Gableman,” the complaint said.

Gableman defended the ad during the campaign as contrasting his background as a prosecutor against Butler’s as a defense lawyer.

His campaign manager, Darrin Schmitz, said in a statement that the complaint has “no basis in fact or in law” and tramples on Gableman’s rights to free speech.

“The Commission chose to ignore the plain language of the ad, which is factual,” he wrote. “Instead, the complaint alleges that the ad contains false statements on the basis of inference and implication. The First Amendment does not allow a claim to be made on that basis.”

He added: “We’re confident that in the end actual judges will apply the law and the matter will be dismissed.”

Seven members of the judicial commission participated in the decision to file the complaint. They were either appointed by the governor or the Supreme Court and include prominent lawyers, businesspeople and an appeals court judge.

Butler, who recently accepted a faculty position at the University of Wisconsin law school, declined comment. “It’s important to let the process work itself through,” he said.

A three-judge panel will now hear the complaint and determine whether it has merit. If it does, the panel will make a recommendation on discipline to Gableman’s colleagues on the Supreme Court, which will make the final decision. Discipline could include a reprimand, suspension or even removal from the bench.

Lawyers across the political spectrum called Gableman’s ad misleading before the election and the liberal-leaning Citizen Action of Wisconsin filed the complaint that prompted the commission investigation.

“What’s most discouraging about this complaint was not only that everyone saw it coming but that the campaign worked,” University of Wisconsin-Madison professor Howard Schweber said.

The ad had echoes of the one featuring Horton, who was serving a life term for murder and was granted a weekend furlough under a program overseen by then-Gov. Michael Dukakis of Massachusetts. Horton escaped to Maryland, where he robbed and raped a woman.

A TV ad in the 1988 presidential campaign associating Dukakis, the Democratic nominee, with the incident hurt him in his race against Republican George H.W. Bush, who won the election.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

Wisconsin Supreme Court rules against men in abuse case

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Posted on 17th July 2008 by Gordon Johnson in Uncategorized

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Date: 07/16/2008 05:03 PM

By SCOTT BAUER
Associated Press Writer

MADISON, Wis. (AP) _ The Wisconsin Supreme Court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit filed by five men who claimed two Roman Catholic dioceses should have reported sexual abuse claims against a teacher before he moved on to a Kentucky diocese and molested them.

The lawsuit alleged that the Diocese of Milwaukee told Gary Kazmarek to “leave Milwaukee quietly” in the 1960s before he moved to suburban Madison and later Kentucky, where he is serving a 13-year prison sentence for abusing the five men between 1968 and 1973.

The high court unanimously rejected the men’s claims that the Madison diocese was negligent in failing to contact police or warn employers that Kazmarek was known for sexually abusing children. The justices said the men did not allege that the diocese even knew Kazmarek was teaching at a Catholic school in Louisville, Ky., or that the archdiocese there had ever asked for references.

“Reasonable and ordinary care does not require the Diocese to notify all potential subsequent employers within dioceses and parochial school systems across the country, along with all parents of future unforeseeable victims,” Justice Louis Butler wrote for the court.

The Supreme Court said the Madison diocese’s failure to warn potential victims in other states did not constitute negligence. It deadlocked 3-3 on the portion of the lawsuit pertaining to the Milwaukee diocese, but a lower court ruling throwing out the case on different grounds still stands.

“Obviously I think it’s unfortunate because this is a teacher that molested students in two different locations and went on to do it again,” said Wendy Gunderson, the attorney for the men.

Attorney Donald Heaney, who represented the Madison diocese, said it wouldn’t make sense for any employer to have to track former workers for the rest of their lives.

“We don’t have a continuing duty to try to find out who in the world needs to be warned about something that may or may not happen,” he said.

The Diocese of Milwaukee did not immediately return messages seeking comment.

The plaintiffs accused the Wisconsin dioceses of covering up the teacher’s abuse of dozens of children in the 1960s while he taught at Catholic schools in Madison and Milwaukee.

The men were among 243 plaintiffs compensated under a $25.7 million church abuse settlement with the Archdiocese of Louisville. They were all under age 15 when they were sexually abused by Kazmarek, a Catholic school teacher and coach in Louisville.

After the settlement in Louisville, the men filed the lawsuit in Wisconsin.

The appeals court ruled the lawsuit was barred because the three-year statute of limitations for negligence claims started ticking no later than the last assault more than 40 years ago. The men argued that they did not learn of the alleged cover-up until 2002, so the statute of limitations should not apply.

The court said it was unnecessary to address the issue of the statute of limitations as it related to the Madison diocese because the men failed to state a negligence claim under Wisconsin law upon which they could be granted relief.

Justice David Prosser did not participate in the ruling. He withdrew from the case following reports that while serving as district attorney in Outagamie County in the 1970s he declined to prosecute a priest accused of child molestation.

The decision raises the question of whether Kazmarek’s victims in Wisconsin will get justice, said Peter Isely, Midwest director for the advocacy group Survivors Network for Those Abused by Priests. For that to happen, the state Legislature would have to loosen the statute of limitations, he said.

Mark Salmon, who says he was abused by Kazmarek in Milwaukee and who received $600,000 in a 1995 lawsuit, said insurance companies should force the Catholic Church to set up a bulletin board notifying other dioceses and schools when they fire sex offenders.

The Associated Press does not normally name victims of sexual abuse, but Salmon issued a public statement reacting to the court decision.

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.