If you handle Chapter 980 cases, you make like this new paper on sexually violent predator laws. It argues that our nation’s SVP laws are a “miserable failure” and that foreign SVP laws based on international human rights law are more effective… Read more
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Due to COVID-19 courts have been considering large scale prison releases, but usually only for people convicted of nonviolent crimes. Are fears of violent crime recidivism warranted? What does it say about our justice system when we release some inmates but leave others is prisons with large COVID outbreaks? If you’re working on a motion… Read more
More news on how courts are adapting, or attempting to adapt, to the coronavirus pandemic, and how it’s working, or not working: From The New York Times, a story titled “Jurors, Please Remove Your Masks: Courtrooms Confront the Pandemic.“ In the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “First Hennepin County jury trial since pandemic results in quarantine for… Read more
Waukesha County HHS v. S.S., 2020AP592, District 2, 6/10/20 (one-judge decision; ineligible for publication); case activity The circuit court properly exercised its discretion in ordering default judgment for S.S.’s egregious conduct of lying to the court to get her TPR trial adjourned. ¶13 As entry of a default judgment is a particularly harsh sanction… Read more
State v. Mark J. Bucki, 2020 WI App 43; case activity (including briefs) [UPDATED POST – Scroll to the bottom for very useful commentary by Chris Zachar. Many thanks to him for sharing his knowledge.] The headline tells you the only legal proposition you need to take from this soon-to-be-published case: under Daubert, evidence that… Read more
Juneau County DHS v. C.C., 2020AP438, 6/4/20, District 4, (1-judge opinion, ineligible for publication); case activity Courts don’t usually award summary judgment in TPR cases, especially not at the grounds phase where the question is whether the parent abandoned the child. The issue is generally too fact intensive. But here the circuit court found no… Read more
Lomax v. Ortiz-Marquez, USSC No. 18-8369, 2020 WL 3038282, 6/8/20, affirming 754 Fed. Appx. 756 (10th Cir. 2018); Scotusblog page (including links to briefs and commentary) The federal Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) bars a prisoner from being able to file a lawsuit without first paying filing fees if the prisoner has “three strikes”—that is… Read more
State v. Mose B. Coffee, 2020 WI 53, 6/5/20, affirming a published court of appeals decision, 2018AP1209; case activity (including briefs) Under Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 335 (2009), police can search a vehicle after arresting a recent occupant “when it is reasonable to believe that evidence of the offense of arrest might be… Read more
