Backlog of cases delayed during pandemic causes shortage in county courts. //end headline wrapper ?>Milwaukee County Courthouse. File photo by Jeramey Jannene
The COVID-19 pandemic has the Milwaukee State Public Defender’s Office doing what it rarely did in the past – blasting out emails seeking private bar attorneys to represent indigent defendants in criminal cases.
Those types of emails are fairly common in rural counties, where lawyers are scarce and SPD offices struggle to find enough private lawyers to take cases.
In Milwaukee County, though, there are more lawyers overall and enough have been willing to step in when SPD staff attorneys bow out of a case for reasons such as conflicts of interest or caseload issues. Those “can you help” emails in Milwaukee County were very rare, until now.
WUWM A replica of the Mahatma Gandhi statue outside the Indian Embassy in Washington D.C. is also outside of the Milwaukee County Courthouse. It was placed there in 2002.
As we kick off a new season of
Bubbler Talk, listener Chris Cantwell says he recently stumbled upon something outside the Milwaukee County Courthouse that took him by surprise.
“So, I had jury duty the first week of March, and during our lunch break, I decided to take a walk around the courthouse,” he explains. “As I rounded the corner, I saw the statue and fully expected it to be a statue of you know, Solomon Juneau or some figure from legal history, and was pretty taken aback when I got close enough to see that it was a statue of Gandhi.”
After originally trying to quash a subpoena, Wauwatosa Police Chief Barry Weber appeared in Milwaukee County Court on Tuesday for a hearing related to the 2016 fatal shooting of Jay Anderson Jr. by a Wauwatosa police officer.
The hearing came nearly five years after former Officer Joseph Mensah shot and killed Anderson in Madison Park in Wauwatosa. Although the district attorney decided not to charge Mensah in the shooting, Anderson family attorney Kimberley Motley is seeking other avenues to have him charged.
Under Wisconsin law, if a district attorney refuses or is unavailable to issue a complaint, a circuit judge may permit the filing of a complaint. Before the court can do that, a judge must find that there s probable cause to believe that a person should be charged with an offense.
Program Works to Help Keep Wisconsin Veterans Out of Jail
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MILWAUKEE A program across the state of Wisconsin is working to help veterans stay out of jail.
Inside the Milwaukee County Safety Building is a courtroom filled with hope and second chances. Those second chances come from the hard work and determination of veterans and a whole bunch of people who care.
One Army veteran from Whitefish Bay who recently graduated the Veterans Treatment Court knows all too well what a difference this program can make in someone s life.
These days, meticulous puzzles that require patience and skill are a fun outlet for Steven. Steven is a veteran who served as an army medic. However, a few years back, he found himself in some trouble.