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April 28, 2026 – The asbestos dust that a steamfitter breathed, causing mesothelioma, resulted in safe-place statute liability for Pabst Brewing Co., a 5-2 majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided recently in

Estate of Carol Lorbiecki v. Pabst Brewing Co., 2026 WI 12.

“As the owner of the brewery, Pabst owed a non-delegable duty under the safe-place statute to frequenters on the premises, a category that includes employees of independent contractors like Lorbiecki,” Justice Rebecca Frank…
Continue Reading Wisconsin Supreme Court: Asbestos Created Safe-Place Statute Liability

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April 22, 2026 – A statute immunizing health care professionals during the COVID-19 state of emergency did not violate the constitutional right to a jury trial, a unanimous Wisconsin Supreme Court recently ruled in
Wren v. Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital Milwaukee, Inc. (2026 WI 11), barring a medical malpractice lawsuit from a stillborn childbirth. Because the Wisconsin Constitution “empowers the [L]egislature to alter or suspend particular common law causes of action,” the immunity statute suspended Savannah Wren’s

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Continue Reading Wisconsin Supreme Court: Pandemic Doctor Immunity Statute Constitutional

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April 7, 2026 – A 12-year-old student deserved
Miranda protection for questioning in the tiny school resource officer’s (SRO) office and at an in-school suspension desk, a 4-3 Wisconsin Supreme Court majority held in

State v. K.R.C., 2026 WI 10. But everyone on the Supreme Court affirmed the circuit court’s finding of delinquency. The majority said it was harmless error. Other testimony sufficiently supported delinquency for fourth-degree sexual assault. “In sum, the [SRO’s] testimony about Kevin’s statements was

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Continue Reading Wisconsin Supreme Court: Student in Custody at School, but Error Harmless

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March 4, 2026 – The Wisconsin Consumer Act (WCA) allowed the defendant to remedy the claim with the individual plaintiff, preventing a class action lawsuit, a 6-1 majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided in Gudex v. Franklin Collection Service, Inc., 2026 WI 6.

Reversing the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, Justice Brian K. Hagedorn for the majority wrote, “when a customer brings a class action for damages under” Wis. Stat. section 426.110(4)(c) “requires an appropriate remedy be given

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Continue Reading Supreme Court: WCA ‘Appropriate Remedy’ Prevents Class Action

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Feb. 25, 2026 – An appeal challenging the constitutionality of involuntary medication to restore a defendant’s competency to stand trial gave the Wisconsin Supreme Court the opportunity to set standards of review for the
Sell factors in
State v. J.D.B., 2026 WI 5. Justice Brian K. Hagedorn, writing for the 6-1 majority, said “we independently conclude – and agree with the circuit court – that the [s]tate has an important interest in prosecuting Jared for his serious crime

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Continue Reading Wisconsin Supreme Court Sets Involuntary Medication Standards of Review

stock photoFeb. 24, 2026 – Google’s scan of four files that its employee confirmed contained child sexual abuse material (CSAM) operated outside of the Fourth Amendment as a private search, the Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously decided today in State v. Rauch Sharak, 2026 WI 4.

“Google scanned and viewed Rauch Sharak’s files on its own. It had a business reason to do so. Law enforcement became involved only after Google submitted a CyberTip,” summarized Justice Janet C. Protasiewicz, who

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Continue Reading Wisconsin Supreme Court: Google was a Private Actor in File Search

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

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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

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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

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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

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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