Last week, we began a series of posts about the difficulties and controversies of sentencing juvenile offenders for serious crimes such as murder. Most juvenile crimes are generally sentenced lightly, with the understanding that minors make mistakes and should be allowed to reform as they grow older. However, when teenagers commit serious or violent crimes, it is […]
Read MoreEarlier this week, we began a discussion about the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a sentence of life without parole for a man who committed first-degree murder when he was just 14 years old. The recent ruling highlights Wisconsin’s difficult and often controversial viewpoints about how to punish juvenile crime. The defendant was convicted of […]
Read MoreIn January, we wrote that the Wisconsin Supreme Court was reviewing an unusual and difficult case of juvenile crime. The Court needed to decide whether or not to uphold a sentence of life without parole for a man who killed another teenager when he was only 14 years old. The Court’s ruling was delivered this […]
Read MoreAs Wisconsin’s sex crime laws continue to strengthen, it will no doubt begin to burden the state legal system. We have already seen evidence of this locally. We recently wrote that Waukesha’s ban on residency for non-local sex offenders has forced the Wisconsin Department of Corrections to waste time and money trying to relocate released […]
Read MoreIn January, we wrote a post which gave a brief lesson on search and seizure laws. Under the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution, Americans are protected against illegal search and seizure by police and law enforcement. This means that if police suspect you are guilty of a crime such as drug possession, they must first […]
Read MoreWe have often posted about Wisconsin’s hard-line stance on sex crimes. Those who are charged with a sex crime can face literally hundreds of years in prison because of the classification of sex crimes as felonies. Additionally, those who are suspected of a sex crime are often charged with several felonies at once. A recent […]
Read MoreEarlier this month, a 70-year-old Oconomowoc man was released from prison after serving 17 years for sexual assault. The Department of Corrections (DOC) originally planned to place him in Waukesha because of its abundant supply of housing, transit services and access to social services. However, the new city ordinance has barred him from being placed […]
Read MoreA Milwaukee man faces more than 50 years in jail and $220,000 in fines following the car accident deaths of two people. Police say the man caused the accident because he was driving drunk and because he ignored a stop sign. To complicate matters further, the man has never held a Wisconsin driver’s license and […]
Read MoreWe have often written about Wisconsin’s strict anti-drunk-driving enforcement efforts. Every year, Wisconsin authorities make hundreds of arrests for OWI and DWI. Many people assume that an arrest based on breathalyzer evidence is basically an open-and-shut case, but this is not necessarily true. The fact of the matter is that even “solid” evidence from breathalyzers […]
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