Black Lives Matter Protesters Claim Innocence of Touching Racist State Sen; D.A. Bows to Lack of Evidence, Makes No-Jail Offer

No Deal, Say Black Lives Matter Workers, as D.A.'s Office Wants Beyond Reasonable Doubt Charging Standard Changed to Reasonable Inference for This Case
 
Updated - Madison, Wisconsin — There is no evidence that two Dane County women ever laid a finger on State Sen Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) at a late-night June 23, 2020 confrontation at a Black Lives Matter demonstration.

Still, a criminal case against Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer remains at the behest of the anti-Black Lives Matter (BLM) state legislator who has championed prisons and police and the drug war, before confronting a BLM demonstration, then launching a media-political blitz that included accosting a black state Senate candidate in a tirade for which Carpenter apologized and admitted he was "rash and reactionary." [See, for example, news coverage SpectrumNews1, WTMJ, Fox News.]

There is no video showing the women —  Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer, well-regarded  community activists and Black Lives Matter supporters — ever laid a finger on Carpenter.

Both civil rights workers are being prosecuted for the felony crime of Substantial Battery with Intent to Cause Bodily Harm and Party to a Crime, a galling and even more disingenuous charge. 

Hypothetically, the D.A. could charge anyone near the confrontation that Carpenter began with being Party to a Crime.

Bowing to the ridiculous lack of evidence, "The two people charged with the beating of a state senator have been offered a deal by prosecutors that would include no jail time and deferred prosecution," WKOW-TV (Galli, Madison) reports this weekend.

No Deal, Say Black Lives Matter Workers

Reports Tony Galli:

'My client rejected the proposed plea offer because it would have required an admission of guilt, and my client, quite simply, is not guilty,' O'Reilly's attorney Jessa Nicholson Goetz says. 'We will not be resolving this matter for anything short of a dismissal because that is what we believe justice requires.'

The deferred prosecution program would technically lead to a dismissal of O'Reilly's charge if program requirements were met.

'Due to ethical rules, I can’t comment on the specifics of any negotiation at this point,' says Hamer's attorney, Adam Welch. 'However, it has always been our position that Ms. Hamer is innocent of the charge that has been brought against her, so she has no intention of pleading guilty to something she didn’t do.'

No eyewitness has identified the accused as laying a finger on Carpenter.

Madison police detective Linda Trevarthen, who headed the investigation, also swore under oath no witness interviewed saw the two women touch Carpenter, in a hearing last Summer (Rickert,  Wisconsin State Journal).

Tim Carpenter says he cannot identify Mses. O’Reilly and Hamer as ever having touched him.

It's not surprising noone can identify anyone else, because according to Carpenter and another witness, the confrontation that Carpenter incited included some eight to 10 people during a chaotic melee around Midnight.

No matter. Carpenter and the Dane County District Attorney's office continue their criminal pursuit of the Black Lives Matter protesters, two socially conscious women in their 20s with no criminal records, who nevertheless stand accused of the felony crime at the Black Lives Matter protest held last Summer in reaction to the police torture and killing of George Floyd.

Dane County District Attorney Office Changes Its Charging Standard for This Case

Mses. O’Reilly and Hamer have maintained their innocence since the June 2020 protests.

The Dane County District Attorney’s Office say it only charges defendants when its office can prove charges to a trial jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

This oft-made proclamation that the standard of beyond a reasonable doubt is used to determine charging decision is demonstrably untrue in the O’Reilly and Hamer cases.

See, for example, for the announcement, "Ismael R. Ozanne said that the Dane County District Attorney’s Office is declining to prosecute [xx] because there is not enough evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty" (WISC-TV. 2018).

Beyond a reasonable doubt.

Even Asst District Attorney William Brown, known for over-the-top prosecutions and Manichean posturing in court, admitted in August 2020 that, "We don’t know exactly what happens after that other than we have a witness that says various people began kicking and punching. There is a reasonable inference that those two people who are aggressively running at him are the ones involved in the exact same incident" (Rickert, Wisconsin State Journal).

Notice what Brown did at the August hearing?

Brown replaced the finding of criminal guilt beyond a reasonable doubt as the standard used by the District Attorney's office to determine charging with a reasonable inference.

The District Attorney need not use such a high burden of proof — guilt beyond a reasonable doubt — as the basis to determine whether to bring criminal charges, but the Dane County District Attorney office claims it does.

However, guilt beyond a reasonable doubt as the standard of proof that a jury must reach to find a criminal defendant guilty is a bedrock principle ensuring the presumption of innocence, as guaranteed by Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.

Consider two points.

One. The Dane County District Attorney’s Office is proceeding on a case that nowhere approaches guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

Two. The two Black Lives Matter protesters could agree to a deferred prosecution agreement, never set a foot in jail and have the charge stricken from their records.

Both women refused the offer because no reasonable jury can ever find these women guilty of any crime, and because they are innocent.

Why the change of charging standards for this case?

Because Ozanne's conduct in his elected office of public trust is an example of a civil servant working under the color of law, substituting his perceived political expediency to displace the community, the Constitution and his duties.

The Dane County District Attorney’s Office should be ashamed.

But shame in law enforcement is difficult to locate.

I wrote the District Attorney an email last Summer. 

The email is reproduced below:
--
Ismael,

As a member of our community, I have followed with grave concern the cases of Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer.

I am aware that you do not know how, and by whom and with what force violence was inflicted in the confrontation among Tim Carpenter and depending on whom you believe — the police quote a journalist saying some ten people, you say two people — and those who may be criminally responsible.

Did these two women use their elbows, fists, feet, head, or blunt instruments? You have no idea, yet you are charging them with being party to substantial battery by undetermined persons, a "group," as Carpenter told police.

Are you satisfied with Carpenter's credibility?

Did you know Mr Carpenter did not request medical assistance after speaking with protest medic and peacekeepers, as indicated in audio published by WORT News.

Did you know that after a WKOW-TV crew member phoned 911, Carpenter declined to go to the hospital?

Have you checked out Carpenter's story and timeline of the evening of June 23 and early morning of June 24?

Have you viewed video of Carpenter's 'collapse' performed right in front of WKOW-TV?

Do you ascribe responsibility to Mses. O’Reilly and Hamer because they are convenient faces on a video?

Carpenter said he was attacked by a "group." Yet, you divine O’Reilly and Hamer?

I ask you to drop these bogus cases, and issue a public apology to Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer, and Black Lives Matter.

Mike

Michael Leon
Marketing and Public Relations Consultant
http://malcontends.blogspot.com/

Democrat Pols Work to Block George Floyd Trial from Public View, Want No TV Broadcast

A Dead Black Man

Madison, Wisconsin — The George Floyd murder video gives the world a look at the Minneapolis Police Dept — vicious, racist, a black man suffocated to death by the sadistic Derek Chauvin, brandishing a smirk for onlookers pleading for Mr Floyd's life: Nothing can touch me.

Behind the scenes in May, Democrats worried.

Most larger cities are run by Democrat administrations, so how is it that militarized and openly racist municipal police feel free to perpetrate a slow-motion holocaust of black and brown people? Folks might be asking.

Black folks dying is the way it is and the way it should be, is the Democrat consensus. This is an outlook shared by Biden, Obama, from Kenosha, Wauwatosa, Milwaukee, Chicago, Madison and Minneapolis. That's just around here.

Look, Democrats don't like niggers any more than Republicans, that's the truth. You see their black hair, their dark skin — they get what they deserve. And Floyd, that boy sure talked a lot for someone who couldn't breathe, ha ha.

In my state, Wisconsin, we know how to handle Black Lives Matter and their friends who object to George Floyd and other folks getting murdered. 

Throw their black asses in prison, pass laws to protect statues, harass uppity black candidates and then pontificate how protesters need to learn about proper challenge to black people getting iced. 

For example, Wisconsin State Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwuakee), ever more outlandish to Wisconsin Democrat Party silence, remains engaged in his crusade against two Black Lives Matter protestors, Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer, who are wrongfully accused of a violent felony by Carpenter for their work in solidarity with black folks at June protest. Carpenter knows they're wrongfully accused.

So, it comes as no surprise Democrat Minnesota State Attorney General Keith Ellison and Democrat  former acting U.S. Solicitor General Neal Katyal are calling for the criminal trials of Minneapolis police to be shielded from broadcast, blocked from public view.

This is because homicidal police are Democrat creations, and what is bad for police is bad for Democrats.

Hennepin County Judge Peter Cahill ordered the proceedings broadcast on video last month so the world can see and understand.

The Democrat Party since mid-November has been working feverishly to stop the 2021 trial broadcast, asking Cahill to reconsider.

Now, jurists are objecting to the ridiculous position of the Democrat Party censoring the trial of murderous human garbage.

Writes Elura Nanos in Law and Crime:

Whatever the limitations required by the Minnesota General Rules of Practice, Ellison and his team have gotten the issue all wrong. They should not only consent, but rather enthusiastically invite cameras into this courtroom. As prosecutors, their client is the public – and few cases demand public scrutiny and access more than this one does. ...

Without losing sight of the heartbreakingly needless loss of the man himself, the death of George Floyd has become about much more than Floyd the individual. The case sparked a national awakening, tipping public consciousness toward a new level of recognition of some unacceptable deficits woven into the fabric of our society. Sure, Black Lives Matter existed before Floyd’s death, but the BLM protests that ensued during the COVID-19 pandemic may have constituted the largest movement in U.S. history.

Not the time for more censorship, not the time to look away.

Wisconsin Democrats Work Against Two Innocent Women; 'Shockingly Thin' Case Against Black Lives Matter Protesters Moves Forward

Black Lives Matter? Not in Wisconsin, and Not in the Democratic Party

Madison, Wisconsin — This is Wisconsin, folks. 

We'll soon let off a white Kenosha cop who shot a black man point-blank seven times in the back, but two innocent Black Lives Matter protesters are violent felons and must be prosecuted without evidence, say a corrupt Democratic Party district attorney and a reactionary Milwaukee Democratic Party state senator.

The cause of truth and simple decency is lost.

Two criminal cases will at some point be tossed out of out court, if Circuit Court Judge Stephen Ehlke (D) grows a spine, or end with a verdict and an exoneration.

It's the way it is in Wisconsin; life is cheap, and the judiciary is corrupt in favor of the police and prosecutors — two institutions irretrievably undeserving of public regard.

Black Lives Matter protesters Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer, two socially conscious area women in their 20s with no criminal records, stand accused of the felony crime of Substantial Battery with Intent to Cause Bodily Harm against State Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) for not-even-alleged action at a June 23-24 Black Lives Matter protest.

That's right. There is no specific allegation detailing how Mses O’Reilly and Hamer battered Carpenter, a rightwing Dem who calls himself "rash."

There is no video evidence showing Mses O’Reilly and Hamer laying a finger on Carpenter.

Carpenter admitted in a court hearing he cannot identify the defendants as touching him.

Carpenter, who has worked his entire career mobilizing the war on drugs against people of color, admits he has no idea who may have hit him, and you can bet he would implicate the two liberation workers, if he could.

Madison police detective Linda Trevarthen who led the investigation similarly acknowledged that there is no evidence, none, the women specifically touched Carpenter in any way, (Rickert, Wisconsin State Journal).

In fact, according to Carpenter and another witness, the confrontation that Carpenter incited and provoked included some eight to 10 people during a chaotic melee. 

Everyone agrees the scene was chaotic.

Tim Carpenter stayed true to form in using police to take the side of white supremacists as an agent provocateur this time, as the legislator took it to the streets to work to imprison the wrong kind of Wisconsinite.

White supremacis have doxxed and induced the arrest of liberation protesters across the country, so folks were nervous that night, perfect prey for Carpenter.

Tim Carpenter also performed a fall on the Capitol grounds in front of a WKOW-TV crew; went on a public relations spree in the Summer to demonize Black Lives Matter; sponsored a bill to criminalize damaging statutes out of Carpenter's petty spite; and accosted and harassed a black candidate for the State Senate.

Did Carpenter, with a racist past in holding his elected office of public trust and a proven hostility to those working for people of color in Wisconsin, throw a punch first, and others then interceded to defend a victim?

No evidence has been made public that indicts Carpenter or any other single person. Yet, District Atty Ozanne moves the cases forward using his office standard of evidentiary proof that he has concluded charges against Mses O’Reilly and Hamer can be proven to a trial jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

It's absurd.

Not one elected representative of any municipal, County or State office has challenged the prosecutions of these two women, though Carpenter is known around the Capitol for his delusional self-regard and pettiness, qualities acknowledged by Carpenter.

The district attorney, Carpenter and no video evidence tell us when, where, how and by whom Carpenter was allegedly battered after Carpenter managed to incite some eight to 10 people during a chaotic melee.

Consider that.

But a simple parking ticket informs you when, where, how and which vehicle was involved in a parking offense.

But the Democratic Party's district attorney, state senator and judge want to chuck these requirements away for a felony crime that could irretrievably harm two innocent women, who as demanded by their conscience, marched with Black Lives Matter workers in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd.

We have a problem in Wisconsin, and this problem will not go away through inattention.

Both women are scheduled for a pre-trial conference the day after Election Day on Nov. 4.

Folks can contact State Sen Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee) to ask why he rejects decarceration, decriminalization, police defunding. As we work with our historic movement, Carpenter instead authors bill expanding criminal code to protect statues and works to persecute two innocent Black Lives Matter workers.
(608) 266-8535
Sen.Carpenter@legis.wisconsin.gov

District Attorney Ozanne's Decision to Prosecute Black Lives Matters Workers Is Disgrace

Madison, Wisconsin — The Dane County District Attorney’s Office concluded charges against John Doe cannot be proven to a trial jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

Variations of this generic statement explaining a decision to prosecute or not, routinely emanate from the district attorney.

The problem is our current district attorney sometimes engages in a political process to arrive at a legal determination rather than take an honest look at findings applied to the evidentiary standard of beyond a reasonable doubt that Ozanne claims guides his decisions.

Ozanne's, and not just Ozanne's, corruption is an example of a civil servant working under the color of law, substituting his perceived political expediency to displace the community, the Constitution and his duties.

Corruption and political prosecution define the current cases of Black Lives Matter protesters Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer.

Both civil rights workers are being unjustly prosecuted for the felony crime of Substantial Battery with Intent to Cause Bodily Harm.

Funny thing is there is no specific allegation detailing how Mses O’Reilly and Hamer battered the alleged victim, State Sen. Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee), a rightwing, self-admitted "rash" drug warrior who has worked against black folks to build the carceral state over three decades.

No allegation of fists being thrown, nor elbows, feet, blunt instrument, nothing. 

The alleged victim, Carpenter, has not identified the defendants as touching him.

No eyewitness has identified Mses O’Reilly and Hamer as laying a hand on Carpenter.

No video exists showing Mses O’Reilly and Hamer as laying a hand on Carpenter.

In fact, according to Carpenter and another witness, the confrontation that Carpenter incited included some eight to 10 people during a chaotic melee. 

Did Carpenter, with a racist past and a proven hostility to the protesters, throw a punch first, and others then interceded to defend a victim?

No evidence has been made public that indicts Carpenter or any other single person. Yet, Ozanne says he has concluded charges against Mses O’Reilly and Hamer can be proven to a trial jury beyond a reasonable doubt.

Reports Chris Rickert in the Wisconsin State Journal on the decision of Judge Circuit Court Judge Stephen Ehlke at a probable cause hearing to allow these cases to go to trial:

Despite vigorous arguments from the attorneys for Samantha Hamer, 26, and Kerida O’Reilly, 33, both of Madison, Circuit Court Judge Stephen Ehlke found there was enough probable cause to continue with the case against the women, both of whom are charged with substantial battery in the June 24 attack.

Hamer’s attorney, Adam Welch, and O’Reilly’s attorney, Nathan Otis, argued that testimony from the lead Madison police detective in the case did not point to evidence that their clients had been the ones to punch or kick state Sen. Tim Carpenter, D-Milwaukee. ...

'(Carpenter) has not been able to say whether Ms. Hamer specifically touched him in any way. Is that right?' Welch asked Madison police detective Linda Trevarthen.

'Correct,' Trevarthen said.

Good enough for the cops. Good enough for Ehlke, and for Ozanne fronting for Carpenter because they share the same Party affiliation.

So, faced with a corrupt district attorney's office, we as a community can protest, write, and alert the community that two more civil rights workers are about to suffer another injustice.

I wrote Ozanne an email on July 31. We cannot stay silent, no matter how many Ismael Ozannes and Derek Chauvines stain an office of public trust.

The email is reproduced below:
--
Ismael,

As a member of our community, I have followed with grave concern the cases of Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer.

I am aware that you do not know how, and by whom and with what force violence was inflicted in the confrontation among Tim Carpenter and depending on whom you believe — the police quote a journalist saying some ten people, you say two people — and those who may be criminally responsible.

Did these two women use their elbows, fists, feet, head, or blunt instruments? You have no idea, yet you are charging them with being party to substantial battery by undetermined persons, a "group," as Carpenter told police.

Are you satisfied with Carpenter's credibility?

Did you know Mr Carpenter did not request medical assistance after speaking with protest medic and peacekeepers, as indicated in audio published by WORT News.

Did you know that after a WKOW-TV crew member phoned 911, Carpenter declined to go to the hospital?

Have you checked out Carpenter's story and timeline of the evening of June 23 and early morning of June 24.

Have you viewed video of Carpenter's 'collapse' performed right in front of WKOW-TV?

Do you ascribe responsibility to Mses. O’Reilly and Hamer because they are convenient faces on a video?

Carpenter said he was attacked by a "group." Yet, you divine O’Reilly and Hamer?

I ask you to drop these bogus cases, and issue a public apology to Kerida O’Reilly and Samantha Hamer, and Black Lives Matter.

Mike

Michael Leon
Marketing and Public Relations Consultant
http://malcontends.blogspot.com/

On Prosecutors Protecting Wrongful Convictions

"I’ve made the argument before that convicting an innocent person of murder ought to be treated like a doctor who amputates the wrong limb. If it wasn’t intentional, perhaps it shouldn’t be a criminal offense. But it should end that person’s career. Yet to actively work to preserve bad convictions, and to work to keep information about those cases from becoming public, is another matter entirely," writes Radley Balko today in the Washington Post.

With a hat tip to Mark Godsey at the Wrongful Convictions blog, I ask Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne to read a book: Who Killed Sarah? A True Story of Injustice.

I would be happy to email Mr. Ozanne a copy, if you are reading this. Your office is protecting a wrongful prosecution, and I suspect a man of your intellect realizes this fact.

Your office can afford to be just.

On corruption in the Walker administration

How do Republicans believe they can get away with it?

The answer is secrecy and the GOP objectives of public inattention and distraction.

In September 2011, the MJS reports: "By far the biggest beneficiary of a move earlier this year to turn three dozen civil service jobs into political appointments is Cindy Archer, the one-time top aide to Gov. Scott Walker whose house was raided by the FBI last week." (Patrick Marley)

Yesterday, Marley reports that: "The head of a state agency late last year gave a political appointment - and a nearly $27,000 annual raise - to the wife of a Republican Party official without considering any other applicants, state records show." (Marley)

Another day in Scott Walker's regime.

As Republicans demonize teachers, fire department personnel and public workers generally, they plot against good government and the rule of law in Scott Walker's administration, in the Supreme Court, and in the legislature.

Corruption, an underground system of government, generally follows from a regime that sees the public as nuisance.

When Republicans ordered the removal and arrest of silent Wisconsin citizens holding and wearing the Bill of Rights from the Assembly gallery last year, GOP representatives scolded the gallery, saying the people of Wisconsin were "guests" of the Republican leaders.

At the time, I was surprised that this blatant disregard for even the idea of representative democracy did not get more play in the media.

That sense of entitlement, the idea that government is a tool for the Republicans' political benefit is at the heart of the recall movement.

We have the right to observe the politicians, to see if they are truly representing our best interests, to ensure they are protecting and defending the State and United States Constitutions, to evaluate them, and if necessary throw the bums out of office.

Republicans today disagree of course.

In another realm of public concern, as GOP officials fight to keep gerrymandering documents secret to further the election of more Republicans, they claim a legal shroud as a right inside of which the public has no business observing. Why are they trying to conduct the people's business under the cloak of attorney-client privilege—the people of Wisconsin are the client!

"Everything secret degenerates, even the administration of justice; nothing is safe that does not show how it can bear discussion and publicity," wrote Lord Acton.

This idea of open government is one of the venerable traditions of representative democracy (in fact it's a necessity) and Wisconsin—until the Walker administration dropped its bombs with the imprimatur of the four GOP justices of the Wisconsin Supreme Court—has led the nation in transparency, open meetings and records guarantees.

Why are Republicans so opposed to the idea of open government?

Because Acton was right. In public service, everything secret degenerates, including a once-proud political party that now governs hand-in-hand with corruption and an intimate co-conspirator—Fear.

Fear of 12-year-old girls in the Assembly gallery. Of the fabricated union thugs. Of the school teachers, and cooks in university dormitories.

Think of it. Without corruption (specifically Walker's allegiance to huge-moneyed interests and anti-democratic movements) and fear, what chance would Scott Walker have in Wisconsin?

To borrow from another great jurist, Robert H. Jackson, Town Meeting (1939): "Fear will cause a stampede among politicians just as it will among the nobler animals. The only cure for this is a steady and unfrightened public opinion strong enough and expressive enough to show that respect for civil rights is also good politics in America. We defend free speech and free press, not because we agree with those who need defense. Rather, it is because these fights are the very best protection of our system against violent or underground movements."

In a clean, fair election Scott Walker stands no chance, thus even voting is under attack.

Scott Walker will soon be on trial for past corruption, but his current dedication to anti-public movements will be on trial in the recall election, our power protecting us against this type of politician who believes he can get away with it.

Walker's Next Move as GOP Veers into McCarthyism: Attack Judge Sumi and Son as "Leftist"

Judge Sumi

Will Gov. Scott Walker and the Republicans act to defy the legal authority of a judge's ruling against the latest GOP move against the public?

No one knows.

What is known is that this is the most lawless and anti-public administration in Wisconsin history. And the Wisconsin Republican Party is the most ideological and dishonest since the Joe McCarthy era that today's GOP is apparently trying to emulate.

Illusory Tenant has a piece linking to a Dane County Republican press release [March 30] in which the party, upset with her rule-of-law ruling, accuses Judge Sumi of being a "leftist," having attended "cocktail parties held by leftists in Dane County," shopping at "organic, gourmet" food shops run by leftists, having a son who is a "leftist activist," and on and on.

The GOP does raise some questions.

When Tommy Thompson appointed Sumi to the bench in 1998 did he know about these leftist affiliations? Does the GOP have a list of accredited leftists in Dane County and the state of Wisconsin? Will the GOP legislature hold hearings on the leftists who have infiltrated our government?

And how about Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne?

Ismael Ozanne. What kind of name is that? Sounds similar to a character right out of the emissions of that 19th century leftist, Melville.

Maybe these leftists hold secret allegiance to leftists around the world. Maybe to terrorists?

Sumi is running unopposed for reelection to the Dane County Circuit Branch Two seat in next Tuesday's election.

The next step is indicated on Judge Sumi's calender [item 67]:

County   Time   Date   Location

Dane   08:30 am   04-01-2011   7th Floor, Courtroom 7B

Activity Case Number Case Caption
Injunction hearing 2011CV001244 Ismael R Ozanne vs. Jeff Fitzgerald et al

Party Attorney Name(s)
Ozanne, Ismael R

Judge blocks anti-union, anti-collective bargaining law with restraining order

Update: For a transcript of the opinion, see WisPolitics. Judge Sumi was appointed by Republican Gov. Tommy Thompson in 1998.

Democracy just scored a touchdown.

It's a high judicial standard to convince a judge to issue a temporary restraining order halting a law from taking effect.

But the underhanded, anti-democratic efforts of the Wisconsin Republican Party in ignoring Wisconsin Open Meeting requirements in passing the anti-union bill have managed to become the object of an emergency judicial remedy that is granted only in exceptional circumstances.

The order and opinion should become available online at the Dane County Clerk of Courts webpage. [Go about halfway down the page to: Dane County Circuit Court Case Number 2011CV001175 - Ismael R Ozanne vs. Jeff Fitzgerald et al.]

The Wisconsin State Journal reports:

A Dane County judge Friday issued a temporary order blocking implementation of Gov. Scott Walker's controversial measure limiting collective bargaining for public employees, saying a legislative committee likely violated the state Open Meetings Law when it rushed passage of the bill earlier this month.

[T]he ... decision was made soon after hearing arguments from Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne and Assistant Attorney General Maria Lazar. There was no witness testimony. Sumi also denied a motion by Lazar to stay the restraining order pending an appeal.

Sumi ruled that a March 9 meeting of a joint Assembly-Senate conference committee violated Wisconsin's Open Meetings Law and went on to emphasize the importance of open government in remarks during her ruling.

'This was something that would and did catch the public unaware,' Sumi said, 'what ended up being a closed session of a body in propelling legislation forward.'

Patrick Marley, Don Walker and Jason Stein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel quote from Judge Sumi's order, reading in part: ""It seems to me the public policy behind effective enforcement of the open meeting law is so strong that it does outweigh the interest, at least at this time, which may exist in favor of sustaining the validity of the (law) ... ."

Score one for the democratic, open meeting good guy: Wisconsin democracy.

The order and opinion should become available online at the Dane County Clerk of Courts webpage.

Dane County DA Files Complaint on GOP's Open Meeting Violation, Seeks to Void Legislation

The Republican Party of Wisconsin may find itself subject to the rule of law.

The so-called budget repair bill with its noxious attack on collective bargaining may soon be voided. One thing is certain the apparent violation will be litigated for quite some time.

Ed Treleven of the Wisconsin State Journal does a fine job of summing up the issues:

In a challenge to Republican leaders, Dane County District Attorney Ismael Ozanne has asked a judge to void Gov. Scott Walker's measure to limit collective bargaining for public employees, saying lawmakers violated the state's open meetings law when they pushed the legislation through last week.

In a civil complaint filed Wednesday in Dane County Circuit Court, Ozanne alleges that a joint Assembly-Senate conference committee met without providing the required 24 hours' notice, and that notice of the meeting did not give the public enough information about what would be discussed.

Ozanne also alleges that the space for the meeting, the Senate Parlor, was not large enough to accommodate members of the public and that people who wanted to attend the meeting were barred from entering the Capitol, also in violation of state law.

The complaint also seeks to bar Secretary of State Doug La Follette from publishing the legislation, as he has said he would do on March 25, the last step before it takes effect.