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GRGB and its Milwaukee criminal defense team lawyers have long been involved in efforts to obtain the release of wrongfully convicted persons and help them seek and obtain compensation for wrongful incarceration. These efforts include not only direct representation in court with postconviction motions and appeals, but also representing exonerees with claims for exonerated compensation and joint efforts with the Wisconsin Innocence Project to obtain the release of wrongfully convicted individuals.

However, being exonerated of a crime is…
Continue Reading Exonerated Compensation Reform Bills Are Once Again Pending Before the Legislature

In recent years, advancements in neuroscience have shaped and reshaped how we understand the adolescent brain and psyche.

For most of our nation’s legal history, however, children have been overlooked, undervalued, and misunderstood. In the 1990s, several criminologists coined the term “super-predator” in a book in which they theorized that America would be the “home to thickening ranks of juvenile ‘super-predators’ – radically impulsive, brutally remorseless youngsters, including ever more pre-teenage boys, who murder, assault, rape, rob, burglarize, deal

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Continue Reading Neuroscience in the Courtroom Informs How We Should Sentence Youth

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Jan. 23, 2026 – The Fourth Amendment’s private search doctrine protected a warrantless view of a video that Snapchat flagged as child sexual abuse material (CSAM), a majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed on Wednesday in State v. Gasper, 2026 WI 3.

“The government did not exceed the scope of Snapchat’s search when it viewed the video because any expectation of privacy [Michael Joseph] Gasper may have had in the video was frustrated by the private

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Continue Reading Wisconsin Supreme Court: Video View OK Within Private Search

Most people charged with property crimes in Wisconsin are not career criminals. Many are college students, young adults, or people who have never been in trouble before. Sometimes the crime stems from a stupid decision at a party. Sometimes it is a misunderstanding between friends. Sometimes it is a prank that went too far.

If you are a parent reading this, you may be panicked and confused. If you are a young adult reading this, you may be scared…
Continue Reading 5 Property Crimes You May Not Know Are Felonies

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Dec. 16, 2025 – A car enthusiast who likes vanity plates to express his opinions recently lost his First Amendment claim on summary judgment before the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin.

The court in M J Nichols Company, Inc. v. Thompson, No. 24-cv-566-amb (W.D. Wis., Dec. 12, 2025), held that a license plate is government speech.

Whether the language on a license plate is individual expression or government speech to which the First Amendment doesn’t

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Continue Reading U.S. District Court: First Amendment Doesn’t Protect ‘RD RRAGE’

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Nov. 25, 2025 – In what may be the first case of its kind, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals in

State v. Melssen, No. 2024AP1942-CR (Nov. 20, 2025) (recommended for publication) vacated an order denying suppression of evidence obtained from an overly broad search of a smartphone. Presiding Judge Rachel A. Graham, writing for the unanimous three-judge panel, concluded “the warrant to search [Emil] Melssen’s smartphone – which authorized officers to search virtually all of the messages, images,

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Continue Reading Court of Appeals: Smartphone Search Unconstitutionally Overbroad

Ignition interlock devices (IIDs) – devices that require a breath sample from the driver of a vehicle, and which must register no alcohol (which means 0.02%) – are a common requirement / Court Order for individuals convicted of Operating While Intoxicated (OWI) or “drunk driving” in Wisconsin.

The IID devices are installed in the driver’s vehicle (technically required on any vehicle owned or operated by the driver) and require the driver to pass a breathalyzer test before the car

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Continue Reading How to Navigate Court Ordered Breath Testing In Your Car

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Nov. 12, 2025 – A required administrative referral for criminal prosecution didn’t apply for allegedly breaking controlled substances laws, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals recently held in
State v. Syrrakos, No. 2024AP554-CR and
State v. Shattuck, No. 2024AP556-CR (Oct. 29, 2025) (recommended for publication). The Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the consolidated cases against Christopher J. Syrrakos and Kristyn A. Shattuck to Waukesha County Circuit Court. The circuit court dismissed the cases because the Department of

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Continue Reading Court of Appeals: Controlled Substance Violation Doesn't Get Hemp Regulatory Protection

Earlier this year, I presented at a Wisconsin Defense Counsel Conference, along with three jurors from two of my most recent jury trials.

I was pleasantly surprised that these three jurors (two of whom are retired, giving them a little more free time) voluntarily spent time answering questions on a panel and taking the many questions from our audience. Many attorneys talk to jurors immediately after verdicts or follow up in the days after verdicts to learn what the…
Continue Reading The Jurors Spoke. I Listened. Here’s What I’ll Do Differently Next Time

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Oct. 14, 2025 – A circuit court’s failure to instruct the jury to decide on each period of abandonment denied a mother due process protection of a five-sixths verdict, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals decided in

S. S. v. A. S.-P., No. 2024AP2532 (Sept. 23, 2025) (recommended for publication). The decision clarifies “unsettled law,” justifying reversal of the Brown County Circuit Court verdict for plain error. “When multiple periods of abandonment are alleged, that statute requires the jury

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Continue Reading Court of Appeals: Separate Abandonment Claims Require Separate Verdicts

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Oct. 14, 2025 – The statute setting requirements for recommitting an individual that the circuit court had conditionally released after a verdict of not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect the Wisconsin Court of Appeals found unconstitutional in State v. ​Wilhite, No. 2024AP2177-CR (Sept. 25, 2025) (recommended for publication).

Due process requires a finding of dangerousness, explained Presiding Judge JoAnn F. Kloppenburg for the unanimous panel, including Judges Brian W. Blanchard and Jennifer E. Nashold.

The

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Continue Reading Court of Appeals: Dangerousness Necessary to Support Recommittal

When Your Child’s Bad Decisions Land You in Criminal Trouble
 Posted on October 08, 2025 in Criminal Defense
For many parents, watching a child grow into independence is thrilling and terrifying at the same time. You hope they make good decisions, learn from mistakes, and get through adolescence and early adulthood with care.

But sometimes, even well-intentioned parents find themselves facing legal consequences because of their children’s reckless or illegal actions. In Milwaukee, this can happen in cases as…
Continue Reading When Your Child’s Bad Decisions Land You in Criminal Trouble

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In an effort to intensify their efforts against health care fraud, the U.S. Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) announced on July 2, 2025, the creation of a DOJ-HHS False Claims Act (“FCA”) Working Group (the “Working Group”). While DOJ and HHS have a long history of collaborative work under the FCA, this initiative signals a heightened and coordinated focus on investigating and prosecuting health care fraud. The Working Group aims…
Continue Reading DOJ and HHS Intensify Health Care Fraud Action with FCA Enforcement Group

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Sept. 22, 2025 – Two state statutes that covered the same criminal act – one that required a mandatory minimum sentence – were not unconstitutional under federal and state precedent, the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District I recently held in

State v. Kenyon, No. 2022AP2228-CR (Sept. 16, 2025) (recommended for publication). “[W]e find no case that stands for or even implicitly supports the proposition that a trial penalty is imposed when the State chooses to charge a defendant

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Continue Reading Court of Appeals: No ‘Trial Penalty’ for Different Sentences in Similar Statutes

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Sept. 2, 2025 – A police request to enter an apartment to search for a missing child – when they really sought evidence of drug dealing – voided any consent that the defendant may have given, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin decided in U.S.A. v. Jose Angel Hernandez-Pineda, No. 25-CR-64 (Aug. 25, 2025), available at 2025 WL 2438683.

“In this case, the officers told Hernandez-Pineda that they needed to get into his home to

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Continue Reading U.S. District Court Suppresses Evidence: Police Ruse Defeats Voluntary Consent

Posted on August 31, 2025 in White Collar Crimes
White-collar prosecutions in Wisconsin can move quickly from investigation to indictment, and once charges are filed, the consequences can be very serious. Defendants often face not only prison time but also financial ruin and irreparable reputational damage; even the news of a criminal investigation can fuel major speculation and cause professional contacts to distance themselves.

While trials are an option, most local and federal white-collar cases end in negotiated resolutions.
Continue Reading Strategies for Negotiating White-Collar Plea Deals