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The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee met last week to approve a $4 million supplemental appropriation for the Wisconsin Department of Justice.

The supplement supports grants to law enforcement agencies for data-sharing platforms under a new program created by 2025 Wisconsin Act 58. Act 58 created a short-term grant program for the acquisition and adoption of data-sharing platforms.

According to the law, the platform must be able to “integrate data from common law enforcement systems on a real-time basis”

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Continue Reading Joint Finance Committee Approves Additional $4 Million for Data Sharing among Law Enforcement

The State Legislature’s Legislative Council created a study committee to evaluate the district attorney funding formula, and the first of four committee meetings occurred at the Capitol last week.

For almost four decades Wisconsin has struggled with the model used to allocate prosecution resources across the state’s many offices.

The current funding formula assigns the available number of full-time employment positions based on caseload as an empirical measure of need.

According to some, the evolution of a prosecutor’s practice

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Continue Reading Legislative Council’s Study Committee Evaluates Prosecutor Allocations

WJI advocates for progressive change in Wisconsin’s justice system. Some of those changes can only come from legislation and who is positioned to make law. Being so, we are also committed to Wisconsin voter engagement. Whether different or supplemental electoral systems may serve voter’s interests is an open question. Some believe other systems may enhance turn voter out, de-escalate the political climate encouraging more citizen participation, and give the electorate more say as to who makes it on the

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Continue Reading Other Electoral Systems – Rank Choice Voting

For privacy protection we will refer to a sexual assault victim as Jane Doe. This story briefly recounts a sexual assault.

Iron County Circuit Court Judge Anthony Stella Jr. is refusing to release records of what he and a prosecutor said at a court hearing in a criminal sexual assault case.

Stella and his staff refuse to allow the victim to purchase a transcript of the sentencing hearing of her assailant.

Meanwhile, the judge and his staff have refused

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Continue Reading Victim’s story leads to Iron County Circuit Court stonewall on public records

By Erik Reinthaler, WJI Intern

On a Thursday morning in July, people trickled into Racine Municipal Court for a docket made up mostly of traffic and ordinance violations. Some seemed to know where to go and what to do. Others needed to be reminded to check in on a computer near the courtroom entrance. As more people arrived, even other court-goers began pointing newcomers toward the sign-in.

Once court started, cases moved quickly. Defendants came forward, entered their pleas

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Continue Reading Court by Court: Observing Wisconsin’s Municipal Justice System

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​By Erik Reinthaler, WJI Intern A divided Wisconsin Court of Appeals late last month reversed a Dane County judge’s ruling that declared major portions of Act 10 unconstitutional. Act 10, enacted in 2011 under former Gov. Scott Walker, significantly limited collective bargaining rights for most state and local government employees while preserving broader bargaining rights for municipal police officers, firefighters and deputy sheriffs. The appellate court found that Wisconsin lawmakers had a reasonable basis for treating some public safety employees differently from

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Continue Reading District 2 Court of Appeals upholds Act 10

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Note: We are crunching Supreme Court of Wisconsin decisions down to size. The rule for this is that no justice gets more than 10 paragraphs as written in the actual decision. The “upshot” and “background” sections do not count as part of the 10 paragraphs because of their summary and necessary nature. We’ve also removed citations from the opinion for ease of. Italics indicate WJI insertions. Emphasis in the original is italicized and underlined.

Case: Wisconsin State Legislature v.

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Continue Reading The SCOW Docket: Attorney General Controls Settlement Funds

Milwaukee is again facing a nearly $100 million dollar gap between what it wants to fund and the cash it will have in the coming year.Despite the shortfall, the Milwaukee Police Department’s budget is likely to significantly increase.

Proposed areas for cuts include election operations and civic engagement, library hours, sanitation and street maintenance.

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson is seeking input from city residents as his office works to close the $96 million dollar gap. The city has posted

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Continue Reading Milwaukee Mayor Asks Residents to Weigh In on Budget Cuts as MPD’s Share of Expenditures Swells

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​By Erik Reinthaler
WJI Intern

The Wisconsin Supreme Court issued three decisions at the end of June addressing different aspects of Wisconsin’s laws concerning mental health involuntary commitment and treatment. The cases—State v. N.K.B., Outagamie County v. M.J.B., and Waukesha County v. R.D.T.—involved involuntary medication, statutory deadlines in civil commitment proceedings, and appeals from expired recommitment orders.

Although the cases arose in different contexts, each turned on the same question: how the statutory framework applies when procedures governing competency

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Continue Reading Wisconsin Supreme Court Rules in Three Cases about Involuntary Commitment and Treatment

Nearly a year after Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge David Borowski found Milwaukee Municipal Court in contempt for failing to record indigency hearings as ordered, the municipal court has agreed to record all hearings for seven years.

The agreement is part of the settlement of a lawsuit brought by a client of Legal Action of Wisconsin, alleging that the municipal court failed to comply with statutory obligations to record certain hearings.

Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Paul R. Van

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Continue Reading Recording Battle Ends: Milwaukee Municipal Court Settles Lawsuit about Failure to Record Poverty Hearings

Wisconsin has important elections coming up on Aug. 11 (primary) and Nov. 3 (general), with strict photographic identification requirements in place by law. Now is the time to make sure you, your family members, friends, and even acquaintances have a valid ID for voting. Check your own documents and let others know about the services VoteRiders provides for those who need help obtaining an acceptable voting ID.
By Erik Reinthaler
WJI InternAlthough for many eligible Wisconsin voters bringing

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Continue Reading Take action now and spread the word: VoteRiders helps Wisconsinites overcome voting barriers

Courtroom And Gavel
Interior of an empty courtroom with gavel and sounding block on the desk.

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

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

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​”Evers’ judges” is our effort to present information about Gov. Tony Evers’ appointees to the bench. The information is taken from the appointees’ own judgeship applications.

Italics indicate direct quotes from the application.​ Typos, including punctuation errors, come from the original application even though we have not inserted “(sic)” after each one. WJI has left them as is.

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Name: Samuel T. Berg

Appointed to: Walworth County Circuit Court

Appointment date: Nov. 7, 2025, to term ending July 31, 2027

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Continue Reading Evers’ Judges: Samuel T. Berg

​”Evers’ judges” is our effort to present information about Gov. Tony Evers’ appointees to the bench. The information is taken from the appointees’ own judgeship applications.

Italics indicate direct quotes from the application.​ Typos, including punctuation errors, come from the original application even though we have not inserted “(sic)” after each one. WJI has left them as is.

Name: Whitney A. Healy

Appointed to: Outagamie County Circuit Court

Appointment date: Nov. 7, 2025, to term ending July 31, 2027

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Continue Reading Evers’ Judges: Whitney A. Healy

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Note: We are crunching Supreme Court of Wisconsin decisions down to size. The rule for this is that no justice gets more than 10 paragraphs as written in the actual decision. The “upshot” and “background” sections do not count as part of the 10 paragraphs because of their summary and necessary nature. We’ve also removed citations from the opinion for ease of reading but have linked to important cases cited or information about them. Italics indicate WJI insertions except

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Continue Reading The SCOW docket: Court strikes down education grant program for minority students

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James Grandberry’s criminal case has been filled with delays.

Nearly one year ago, Grandberry filed a motion for interlocutory appeal to District III of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, challenging the decision of the Brown County Circuit Court to not dismiss his case.

The appeal comes nearly two years after Grandberry’s initial arrest and concerns the 468 days he sat in jail waiting for a preliminary hearing before counsel could be appointed.

During that period, the trial court made

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Continue Reading Slow Justice