Opinion: New Report Shows Concerning Contrast in Reckless Driving Sentences Among Milwaukee Judiciary

WJI received a report in late June from controversial nonprofit Enough is Enough about reckless driving cases in Milwaukee County Circuit Court, highlighting significant differences in judges’ sentencing patterns.The court watch group, which was the subject of an open letter to the Milwaukee County judiciary last year, advocates against reckless driving and for “stronger measures to protect our communities,” according to its website.

“ENE” was founded after the death of Erin Morgensen, who was killed while a bystander to a crash involving the police and a fleeing suspect. While ENE’s court watch program and the reports it produces are objectively laudable citizen efforts to provide oversight and affect a chronic public safety issue in Milwaukee, the group has an agenda, and they have a perspective that is evolving with experience.

ENE wrote in an earlier report that it wanted to see a reduction in the number of cases with sentences less than the state’s recommendation. “No probation for repeat felons” or defendants who commit new crimes while awaiting adjudication, it says in the latest report.

Metrics tracked by the group include the tendency of judges to offer more lenient sentences than those recommended by the prosecutor and the number of relevant cases the group observed in each courtroom.

The report then rates the judges on their tendency to impose less or more lenient sentences than what an assistant district attorney recommends in a given courtroom.

ADAs, like judiciary, are not monoliths. They have past experiences, sometimes with defendants or judges, which inform their recommendations. They have varying degrees of personal experience with certain types of crimes. And they have a lot of discretion. I know this, having lived this, practicing as an ADA in Colorado before coming to Wisconsin.

Measuring judges against compliance with ADA recommendations isn’t exactly an independent variable. It’s always possible the ADA recommendation isn’t the right thing.

That said, an imperfect measure isn’t a meaningless measure, and some things in the report are worth considering, especially because we can’t escape the fact that the criminal justice system’s backbone is individual discretion.

ADA discretion in charging and prosecuting crimes, offering pleas, and recommending sentences butts up against a defense attorney’s obligation to obtain the best possible outcome for their client, irrespective of guilt.

But all of that is pinned against the judiciary’s ultimate discretion in sentencing. In Wisconsin, a trial judge is free to impose any legal sentence, whether the parties have come to terms in a plea deal or the defendant is convicted at trial. While that power is common, it’s not universal across states.

Every defendant’s and victim’s experience is shaped by these forces and everyone practicing in the criminal justice space knows them to be true, but rarely do we take the time to quantify judges’ sentencing discretion, to measure it in action, or think about what it means for the people affected.

I think ENE accidentally did.

In ENE’s most recent reporting period from November 2025 through April 2026, the group observed 10 judges handling cases involving reckless driving. Judges Jorge Fragoso and Jack Dávila had the highest volume of observed cases.

While a small majority (six of 10) of the observed judges imposed more lenient sentences than recommended by the ADA, Fragoso, who handled 55 cases, did so 56% of the time and Dávila, who handled 49 cases, did so 76% of the time.

In ENE’s recent report it seems like the group’s takeaway is that Dávila was the second most lenient sentencer, after Judge Katie Kegel, who saw just eight relevant cases but imposed a more lenient sentence than the ADA’s recommendation 88% of the time.

Kegel, it should be noted, also runs the High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area and Gun Court. According to a defense attorney WJI contacted, she is less likely to see ENE-tracked charges without another charge present in the case, while Dávila deals with general crimes.

In the same reporting period, Judges William Sosnay (10 cases) and Rebecca Keifer (17 cases) operated at the opposite end of the spectrum, never imposing a sentence more lenient than what was requested by the ADA, according to ENE.

The value, morality, or correctness of the more or less lenient sentencing practices isn’t really the issue to me. It’s the effect the disparity in sentencing has on a case—the sense that everyone around the judge is playing the odds, in part predicated on what type of sentence they think the defendant may get.

I’ve seen, and WJI has reported on, other ENE reports. It’s easy to gloss over what seems like a significant disparity and even easier to label the judges as merely more lenient or harsh, especially if you’re not convinced incarceration affects crime or is the ultimate deterrent.

But it caught my attention this time, because I experienced these inconsistencies during the same reporting period.

What always seemed like a simple fact of practice—that some judges are more lenient, that some ADA’s are harsher, that some defense attorneys are less reasonable—feels different when it is happening to you.

In June of 2025, my husband was biking to work when he was hit by a vehicle driver who ran a red light and then fled the scene. The perpetrator’s reckless driving caused great bodily harm and by all accounts should have taken my husband’s life, though he miraculously survived.

In May, the case against the perpetrator was dismissed without prejudice after the Milwaukee Police Department failed to locate and the district attorney’s office failed to personally serve a subpoena on a witness deemed essential for trial. Another witness seemed to suddenly lose their memory the weekend before they were set to take the stand.

But before we knew these witnesses wouldn’t appear for trial, and before we knew the ADA would make the choice to dismiss the case without them, we were asked as victims to consider plea offers that were probationary in nature—some more harsh from the ADA, some more lenient from the defense attorney.

This wasn’t because anyone thought mowing down someone on a bike and fleeing the scene merited such a plea. It wasn’t because the ADA questioned the defendant’s guilt. And it wasn’t just because the case was imperfect.

We were told it was because of the judge’s sentencing record.

The judge’s reputation is consistent with the ENE data. The judge was known to impose probation even in aggravated situations, so even if a trial resulted in conviction, we were warned not to expect incarceration.

It’s impossible to say whether I would have advocated for incarceration. In an ideal world, all my family would really like is to keep the defendant from ever driving again. But that’s not a sentence the court can impose, and it’s also not the point.

The sense that incarceration was totally off the table didn’t just seem to affect the plea; it seemed to affect the defense attorney’s expectations regardless of his client’s guilt or innocence. It seemed to affect the value of taking the case to trial. And it definitely impacted our perception of the criminal justice system in Milwaukee.

The idea that practices from courtroom to courtroom, and indeed outcomes for similar misconduct, depend so much on what judge you randomly pull is tiresome in an already emotionally exhausting system. It makes one question the credibility of a system that purports to strive for impartiality and what we’re told is equal access to justice.

We were never naive about the possible outcomes (including dismissal). It took a lot to even have the case investigated.

I always anticipated the impact of ADA discretion on the case, and I understand that defense attorneys have an obligation to zealously protect their clients, but I honestly didn’t foresee the impact of judicial discretion in sentencing. Frankly, there was less of it in the jurisdiction where I practiced.

I feel like we’ve accepted that balance in an elected judiciary includes some judges who sentence severely and some judges who don’t. But unlike in the Legislature, where a 50/50 split results in inaction for everyone, or a conservative majority results in conservative policies for everyone, a split across courts means that what you can expect from a sentence as a defendant, defense attorney, prosecutor or victim depends more on judicial disposition and less on individual conduct or the law.

Overall, according to ENE’s report, sentences are tending more toward ADA recommendations since ENE began its court watch program in June 2024, with judges adopting more lenient sentences 52% of the time as compared to 72% of the time.

While I don’t think ADA recommendations are a particularly telling metric, and we really don’t know how more or less lenient the sentencing is, I do know the lack of consistency across courtrooms is a tough pill to swallow when it’s happening.

There’s a litany of criticisms that can be levied against the criminal justice system. And my sense, whether you agree with how things are currently structured or not, is that our courtrooms really are full of people trying very hard to do the right thing. Nevertheless, for a victim (and I assume for a defendant as well), the reality of disparate outcomes feels like a game. Who can get what from whom, with less focus on what’s right for the community, you, and whatever justice really means.

In its report, ENE “recognizes the challenging responsibility judges face in balancing the unique facts of each case, the circumstances of the defendant, and the interests of justice.” The group acknowledges sentencing efforts by judges like “including educational sentencing components such as victim-impact essays and attendance at vehicular homicide hearings, which help offenders better understand the real-world consequences of reckless driving.”

I recognize these challenges, too, and I recognize that we elect our judges (though many are appointed first) for their discretion, but I do wonder if we’ve lost some of the plot.

To be clear, I think judicial discretion is a good thing. I think sentences tailored to individual defendants are a good thing. But if sentencing need only be “consistent and proportionate” within the confines of an individual courtroom, it may be worth questioning what those words really mean.