Gov. Evers Rejects Clemency; Pardon Regime Bows to Unreliable Justice System

 Sacco and Vanzetti and Corrupt Judge - Ben Shahn

Evers' Political Grift Goes Unchallenged

Madison, Wisconsin — The Wisconsin media often reports on new pardons granted by Gov. Tony Evers. 

Facts are omitted in coverage misinforming readers about matters of grave import pertaining to our criminal justice system, the governor's power and Evers' political commitments.

Whether such misinformation is relayed purposefully, or committed out of a lack of diligence and intelligence on the part of Wisconsin journalists is beside the point. Misinformation only harms public affairs and private lives.

Tony Evers, like any Wisconsin governor, has the Constitutional power (executive clemency), to grant pardons, (grants of forgiveness restoring civil rights), sentence commutations (roughly, shortening a sentence), and reprieves, for any reason.

The gubernatorial clemency power is so broad that it is monarchical. Gov. Evers could wake up one morning and decide that only those who have completed their sentences from judges whom we know are corrupt may be granted royal relief — perfectly within the province of his gubernatorial authority.

In a piece for the State Bar of Wisconsin' journal, the Wisconsin Lawyer, past chair of the governor's Pardon Advisory Board, Donald Leo Bach, notes, "In Wisconsin, the power to pardon belongs exclusively to the governor, who can exercise it essentially in any manner the governor sees fit."

Evers' Pardon Advisory Board's website implies that criteria established for pardons and all clemency action have the force of law, but this is not just inaccurate and misleading, it is an out-and-out lie that has gained a firm footing.

"State law does not create a pardon advisory board or require its use. Instead, individual Governors decide whether to use a pardon advisory board and how to structure the board’s membership and work," notes the Wisconsin Legislative Council, IssueBrief (Oct 2019).

Advisory boards do not change Wisconsin governors' Constitutional power, but as in Evers' administration, advisory boards can serve as shields to protect politcal acts of cowardice and dishonesty on the part of the governor.

For some journalists, it is difficult to believe a politician engages in cowardice and dishonesty, so politicians' statements must be reported as fact, and not reported as self-serving statements.

Zero sentence commutations

Evers' predecessor, Gov. Scott Walker, refused to use his power of executive clemency and granted zero sentence commutations and zero pardons, in accordance with his political commitments.

Gov. Tony Evers uses his power of executive clemency, but has granted zero sentence commutations, in accordance with Evers' political commitments protecting a corrupt criminal justice system.

This aligns Evers with Scott Walker on sentence commutations, and differentiates Evers from Govs. Dreyfus, Earl and Thompson who together commuted 46 sentences between 1979-2001.

Pardons

Evers has granted 449 pardons as of March 24, 2022.

Evers set up his Governor's Pardon Advisory Board that advises him on whom to pardon.

All clemency decisions remain Evers' and his alone. To be clear, any reporting that also suggests that Evers is bound by his Advisory Board or other political adviser is erroneous.

Press coverage

One problem in press coverage is common omission of the fact Evers refuses to commute criminal sentences. When noted, Evers' refusal is followed by a paragraph re-stating that the Pardon Board's criteria disallows innocents still in prison to be considered for pardons by the Board.

Casual readers, including many in the Innocence community, conclude falsely that Evers has no choice but to follow the dictates of his own advisory board.

Evers' anti-commutation commitment seems ironic, especially in a state where law enforcement misconduct is rampant in Waupaca County, Shawano County and Manitowoc County, for example, and found throughout the state.

Why Evers adopts Scott Walker's model

Why did Evers set up his pardon regime in which applicants must wait years after serving a sentence, while simultaneously also refusing commutations?

Evers is offering political protection to the criminal justice system and law enforcement as he implicitly accepts as fact the system's findings, convictions and criminal sentencing. Evers effectively covers up for criminal justice system misconduct.

This, even as he attempts to accrue the political benefits of compassion that attend to an altogether weak and passive pardon regime.

Not once has Evers called into question dishonest cops, crooked prosecutors, or intellectually dishonest judges.

Evers could stand up against small-town injustice, police corruption and the likes of Ken Kratz, the disgraced prosecutor of Brendan Dassey and Steven Avery of Making a Murderer, (Netflix, Inc), infamy, as well as myriad other cases of injustice.

Tony Evers owes no more fealty to the Wisconsin Judiciary and the criminal justice system than he does to the findings and integrity of the state legislature. 

Evers' political commitment defending the integrity of the criminal justice system drives his execution of zero commutations and his own selective pardon criteria, stated and unstated.

Consider Brendan Dassey and Steven Avery

The 2015 Making a Murderer pulls back the curtain on Wisconsin's criminal justice system so rigorously that no official can state, 'We didn't know.'

Both Dassey and Avery were wrongfully convicted of homicide at separate trials in 2007.

Ex-District Attorney Ken Kratz was forced to resign after Gov. Jim Doyle began removal proceedings in 2010 after a favors-for-sex, harassment scandal dating back years came to light.

Kratz, fatuously claimed innocence as the DOJ investigated him, citing his narcissistic personality disorder, sexual compulsion disorder and multiple drug addictions. The Wisconsin DOJ did not press criminal charges on a fellow law enforcement official nor review any of his past cases.

Not one elected politician demanded that all of Kratz' cases, including Dassey and Avery's, be re-examined because Kratz and east-central Wisconsin police are manifestly unreliable, citing Kratz' narcissistic personality disorder, sexual compulsion disorder and multiple drug addictions, for starters.

A member of Dassey's post-conviction defense team, former U.S. Solicitor General, Seth Waxman, said in Oct 2019 in Madison, "I have never had a case that has troubled me more than this case, that has kept me awake at night, that makes me anxious and sad. And that's because I know that Brendan Dassey is innocent."

Way forward

Gov. Evers needs to set up a Conviction Integrity Unit that acts as a liaison with Innocence Projects and other human rights groups to present cases they believe to have been dealt with unjustly and corruptly.

As noted in the Innocence Project - Conviction Integrity Units - Best Practices article, truth, liberty and justice need not be sacrificed because of corruption:

[2] c. Review is in the interests of justice

It should be noted that in many jurisdictions prosecutors and courts have explicit statutory or common law authority to vacate convictions or reduce sentences in the interests of justice. It should be emphasized, however, that the orientation or mindset of an 'interests of justice' review is frequently an
important element in making a judgment about whether relief is warranted when reconstructing what occurred in old cases where there are, as in most cases, a need to resolve issues with less than perfect information.

  d. The fact that a defendant pled guilty or is no longer incarcerated should not be a bar to examining cases

We as Wisconsin citizens must demand that no elected official works to keep in prison those whom they know to be innocent, and withhold our political support until innocent men and women breathe free air.

If Tony Evers and future governors won't correct the failings of our criminal justice system, we as citizens must do so.

Wrongful Confession Dassey Case Goes to Oral Argument This Morning Before Full Fed Court

Oral argument this morning in 16-3397; Brendan Dassey v. Michael Dittmann

Oral argument before the full, (en banc) United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, will be held this morning on the coerced confession of Brendan Dassey of Wisconsin, featured in Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos' documentary series, Making a Murderer (on Netflix), (16-3397; Brendan Dassey v. Michael Dittmann).

The coercive questioning, dubious confession by the young and cognitively challenged Dassey, arrest and conviction of Dassey shows the Wisconsin criminal justice system as a vicious leviathan run by liars, criminals and jackals, and the Wisconsin Dept of Justice officials who will go to any lengths to protect the conviction of innocents.

The Wisconsin Dept of Justice en banc petition was granted by the federal appellate court on August 4.  

A named litigant in (16-3397; Brendan Dassey v. Michael Dittmann) is Michael A. Dittmann, the warden at the Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin.

Dassey's outrageous conviction was overturned in federal court by U.S. Magistrate Judge William Duffin on Aug. 12, 2016. But Dassey remains in prison while the Republican-dominated Wisconsin DoJ continues its work to protect Dassey's conviction for the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach, (Thompson, USA Today, Wisconsin).

A definitive ruling would expose the Wisconsin criminal justice system to widespread ridicule. The case is expected to be appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

Texas Conviction Integrity Unit Hailed as Model

Goya, Saturn devouring a child

As prosecutor-politicians and police advance their careers over the shattered lives of the wrongfully convicted, from Texas comes a report on the success of the country's first conviction integrity unit.

Noah Fromson, (Medill News Service), reports in the Texas Tribune in Austin, Texas:

In 2007, the new district attorney of Dallas County partnered with the Innocence Project of Texas to review over 400 old cases, many involving denied requests for DNA testing, because the county had the highest number of wrongful convictions in the country.

To ensure such mistaken convictions never happened again, District Attorney Craig Watkins established the first conviction integrity unit in the United States later that year.

'We made history ... I still get calls to my private office for individuals that want me to do that,' Watkins said this week of reviewing old cases, 'but I don't have the power to do that anymore.' ...

While they exist in less than 1 percent of the nation’s 3,007 counties, such units were responsible for 39 percent of overturned wrongful convictions in the U.S. last year, according to a report by the National Registry of Exonerations. That’s 58 of the record-high 149 exonerations in 2015.

The work of reporters and innocence projects has led to a series of exonerations involving the misuse of forensic information by law enforcement, said James Liebman, director of the Center for Public Research and Leadership at the Columbia Law School.

'There is a huge sensitivity now to the misuse of prosecutorial and police processes to convict people who are innocent,' Liebman said. 'Officials have become sensitive to those (innocence) claims and are taking responsibility to do something about it.' ...

As a result, more district attorneys are starting their own units, said John Hollway, executive director of the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

“As information has spread and (units) have gotten more praise and done more good, you see a rapid uptick,” Hollway said. “More than half of them were started in the last 24 months.”

The units spend a lot of time sorting through requests from the convicted parties, innocence projects and other sources to decide what to review, said Inger Chandler, chief of the Conviction Review Section at the Harris County District Attorney’s Office in Houston.

'We try to give every case its due diligence because the last thing you want to do is miss that needle in a haystack,' Chandler said. 'Where we carve people out of eligibility for our review is that you have to be making a claim of actual factual innocence. In other words, 'I wasn’t there' or 'I was misidentified.' Not a justification, not a lesser role, but factual innocence.'

Working to free the innocent. Sounds like a good idea.

Innocence

While the Innocence Project notes some systemic causes of wrongful convictions—Eyewitness misidentification, Unvalidated or improper forensic science, False confessions or admissions, Government misconduct, Informants, Inadequate defense—the fact is the government, the Constitutional Sovereign, in the criminal justice system is implemented by fallible and not-always-decent people.

As such, every base motivation and imperfection to which the human mind is subject—prejudice, hate, complacency, career opportunity, convenience, lassitude, intellectual laziness, tunnel vision—are inflicted onto the suspect and accused.

Conviction integrity units 

Conviction integrity units independent from the District Attorney's office are critical, emphatically when one considers police and prosecutors often stand in the way of exoneration and freedom for the innocent in the face of exculpatory evidence, (Gould, Leo; The Path to Exoneration).

Our local democracies must embrace the fact many in law enforcement will take a conviction of the innocent over the truth, or tragedy results.

When victims, whom police and prosecutors know to be innocent, are impelled onto the criminal justice conveyor belt, law enforcement personnel convince themselves they're just doing their jobs.

As for the innocent people sent into exile to the leviathan about which Robert Jackson presciently warned us about 75 years, their lives are taken and easily forgotten.

Steven J. Phillips published No Heroes, No Villains (Vintage) in 1978, explaining the procedures of criminal law in a gripping account and chronicling of a true-crime murder case in New York. Phillips' thoughtful book no longer bears any relevancy to criminal law procedure in the police-prosecutor-prison-state America.

Today, the villains often wear badges redolent with the myth of purity, defenders against the dangerous class. Prosecutors, judges and court services are bureaucrats working busily like something out of Terry Gilliam's film, Brazil.

Penny Brummer 

In Dane County (Wisconsin), advocates working to free an innocent woman, Penny Brummer—convicted in 1994 and inflicted a life sentence behind bars by an unholy convergence of bigotry, tunnel vision, careerism and demonetization—are cautious to adopt an oops-could-accidents-will-happen and passive-accomplices-just-doing-their-jobs-should-be-excused account of law enforcement in the wrongful conviction and malicious prosecution of Brummer.

The ethics and efficacy of this moral-immunity approach to freeing the innocent Brummer convicted by hatred of lesbians, among other pathologies, are not convincing.

Indifference

But there is another perpetrator beyond law enforcement in Brummer's case: Indifference.

To borrow from a critical study of totalitarian systems edited by Alan L. Berger:

If the many viewed indifference as an neutral act, [Norman] Cohn, on the other hand, points out its lethal quality. It was, he says, 'precisely the mixture of fanaticism of a minority with the indifference of the many that made possible the whole development from the first restrictions to the final extermination.' Indifference, far from being neutral, is always on the side of the executioner. (Cohn, Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, (p. 200). Cited by Roger W. Smith, in Fantasy, Purity, Destruction: Norman Cohn's Complex Witness to the Holocaust in "Bearing Witness to the Holocaust 1939-1989" (p. 121), edited by Alan L. Berger.)

If the reader considers studies of totalitarianism in 1930s-40s Germany and conquered nations not relevant to Brummer's case, consider what a life sentence of incarceration would mean to someone you know wrongfully convicted of first degree intentional homicide in her young 20s, just months home after a five-year stint serving her country, (straight out of high school), in the U.S. Air Force.

As a Brummer advocate's signature on her emails reads: "There is no crueler tyranny than that which is exercised under cover of law, and with the colors of justice ..." - U.S. v. Jannotti, 673 F.2d 578, 614 (3d Cir. 1982)

An independent conviction integrity unit would have and still can free Penny Brummer and who knows how many other wrongfully convicted (and finally exonerated) Forest Shombergs, Ralph Armstrongs, Anthony Hicks, and Audrey Edmunds, or anyone black and in the wrong place at the wrong time in Dane County.

White papers on conviction integrity units include Conviction Integrity Units: Vanguard of Criminal Justice Reform and An Epidemic of Prosecutor Misconduct.

Writes Mark Godsey, (Daniel P. and Judith L. Carmichael Professor of Law, University of Cincinnati College of Law; Director, Center for the Global Study of Wrongful Conviction; Director, Rosenthal Institute for Justice/Ohio Innocence Project) on police, prosecutors as passive accomplices (my words):

What’s scary is how tenaciously police and prosecutors cling to their initial assumptions—and how much this reflects basic human tendencies. ...

It’s natural for police and prosecutors to want to ease public fears. And it’s also natural for them to stick with the evidence that supported their preferred explanations. As University of Wisconsin clinical law professor Keith Findley shows in his excellent 2010 article Tunnel Vision, the phenomenon 'is the product of a variety of cognitive distortions,' chief among them confirmation bias. In other words, we tend to give weight to evidence that confirms our existing beliefs. 'Although such confirmation-biased information is often less probative than disconfirming information might be, people fail to recognize the weakness of the confirming feedback they receive or recall,' Findley writes. He cites studies finding that 'police officers who are convinced that a suspect is lying are very resistant to changing their minds' and often 'rate disconfirming or exonerating evidence as less reliable or credible than guilt-confirming evidence that supports their initial hypotheses.'

I called Brandon Garrett, the law professor who wrote the book on wrongful convictions and why they happen, and he pointed out that police and prosecutors have no obligation to pursue alternative explanations, or even to follow a particular method of investigation or keep a record explaining the course they’re taking. Which means it’s close to impossible to hold them accountable for their errors. 

Errors and the indifference of the many. These features of American society ought instruct the creation of independent integrity units in every territorial law enforcement jurisdiction in the nation.

Protest in Manty Co. Friday, New Trial for Avery-Dassey Demanded

Manitowoc County in east-central Wisconsin
(blackened in image) is located deep in Republican
territory, a region notorious for corrupt police
and law enforcement. 'Where did all that cocaine
from the evidence room go?' National reporters should ask
sources surrounding Manitowoc County about an
array of open secrets not flattering to police. Local
Wisconsin journalists certainly will not.

WBAY-TV (Green Bay) reports protest groups will gather in Manitowoc Friday, Jan 29 at 10:00 a.m (Central) at the Manitowoc County Courthouse, (Schuster, WBAY-TV).

They want a new trial for Steven Avery and Brenden Dassey, and a federal investigation, (few trust the Wisconsin Republican Party's Dept. of Justice).

The American criminal justice system is coming under renewed and sustained criticism for corruption and its convictions-at-all-costs mentality across the nation.

Most prosecutors see their position as a stepping stone for legal careers. Wisconsin is among the worst.

Among the groups expected are groups organized through Facebook, Justice for Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey and the Steven Avery Project.

Other press reports note hotel rooms are filling up in Manitowoc County, and many protesters are flying in from out-of-state.

Manitowoc County is located in east-central Wisconsin, not northeastern Wisconsin.

The region—including Sheboygan, Fond du Lac, Manitowoc, Calumet, Winnebago, Outagamie, Kewaukee and Brown counties—is appallingly racist, white, corrupt and Republican. See also the stories on the openly corrupt Vince Biskupic, former Outagamie County district attorney appointed to a judgeship by Scott Walker.

Conviction Integrity from St. Clair County Illinois to Dane County

News from this weekend comes from St. Clair County, Illinois.

This southwestern county in Illinois was not a place on my radar screen, for anything. It is now.

George Pawlaczyk and Beth Hundsdorfer report in the Belleville News-Democrat (Illinois) a new Conviction Integrity unit begun in 2013 as a check on wrongful prosecutions and wrongful convictions has already exonerated a full nine people.

"[N]ine defendants accused in eight cases have been freed in prosecutions that involved murder, armed robbery, predatory criminal sexual assault, reckless homicide, possession of a weapon by a felon and felony retail theft," note Pawlaczyk and Hundsdorfer.

Nine more innocents exonerated from a county roughly half as populous as Dane County Wisconsin in some two years.

As Wisconsin (and the nation) comes to grips with the fact police routinely lie, coerce innocents and cook reports, prosecutors' prime objective remains to achieve statistics of convictions over truth. Reforms in district attorney's offices are as common as a 50-degree January day in Wisconsin, and the question arises what is to be done.

The criminal justice sensation chronicling the moral and legal disgrace in Manitowoc County Wisconsin, Making of Murderer, has provoked a reaction among law enforcement jurists.

This reaction from Wisconsin law enforcement, I'm told, is one of smug arrogance, inappropriate from the prosecutorial offices holding so much power over the liberty of American citizens in a Constitutional democracy.

Then again most jurists don't become prosecutors to serve the citizenry, and the district attorney's office is not a fountain of soul-searching intellectuals who stay up nights pondering what went wrong when another innocent is exonerated after losing decades of his or her life.

This isn't grade school, folks: Let's acclaim a truism, the district attorney's office (or the state's attorney's office) is typically a stepping stone to enhance a legal career; maybe a lucrative position as a partner in as a defense attorney in a mid-sized firm, (unless your were drummed out of office like the fetid, ethics-free Ken Kratz who runs a small firm exiled up north in Superior, Wisconsin) or maybe a cushy, tax payer-financed judgeship awaits.

Dane County's Penny Brummer

In Dane County, readers are familiar with the wrongful conviction of Penny Brummer, as the Innocence Project, journalists, jurists, scholars and advocates know well this woman is innocent and they cannot, to this point, get Ms. Brummer out of prison, much less exonerate her. No evidence plus no motive equals no justice for Penny Brummer, but hey, she is a lesbian and served in the military right out of high school. By the way, please consider signing this new petition RE getting Ms. Brummer a new trial.

The reason Brummer remains in prison, to be candid, is the obstinance of the district attorney's office, and the absence of an independent county Conviction Integrity Unit.

Considering the analytical resources in Dane County and the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Frank J. Remington Center, there is every citizen resource in place to draft a mission statement, policies and procedures, criteria and scope of an independent Conviction Integrity Unit as a check on wrongful prosecutions and convictions in Dane County such as Penny Brummer, and Forest Shomberg, and Ralph Armstrong, and Anthony Hicks, and Audrey Edmunds, perhaps you notice a pattern forming: These are human beings. And this is just a partial list in Dane County where being exonerated is very difficult and takes a lot of luck along with the dedication of the Innocence Project, for example.

Most of the growing number of Conviction Integrity units across America are part of the district attorney's office and their efficacy is under debate.

But in St. Clair County, Illinois, State's Attorney Brendan Kelly's Conviction Integrity unit works before conviction and a case's inception into Conviction Integrity protocol is begun at the request of defense attorneys to the state's attorney.

No reason Dane County cannot establish a Conviction Integrity Unit, independent from the district attorney's office, and staff it with retired jurists, journalists, students and other scholars.

Ask Brummer, Shomberg, Armstrong, Hicks, and Edmunds (and an untold number other citizens) if this might be a good idea.

To end on a positive note, $16.8 Million was awarded by the State of Connecticut to four wrongfully convicted men last week. Good thing those guys don't live in Manitowoc County, or Dane County.

"The quest for a conviction cannot outweigh the Constitution rights of an accused," wrote Commissioner J. Paul Vance, Jr., Claims Commissioner of the State of Connecticut.

Dare to dream.

Misconduct in Manitowoc: Police Induced False Confession, Say Expert and Attorney

Manitowoc County in east-central Wisconsin
(blackened in image) is located deep in Republican
territory, a region notorious for corrupt police
and law enforcement. 'Where did all that cocaine
from the evidence room go?' National reporters should ask
sources surrounding Manitowoc County about an
array of open secrets not flattering to police. Local
Wisconsin journalists certainly will not.

Updated - In Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos' documentary series, Making a Murderer (on Netflix), the cast of uncharged criminals wear a badge or have sworn an oath. They all work for law enforcement.

The prosecution's most damning witness, Brendan Dassey, had an IQ below 70 and was 16-years-old.

Police investigators played Dassey's condition to the hilt, working with a corrupt Manitowoc County Sheriff Dept. and District Attorney's office to wrongfully convict two innocents, Dassey and Steven Avery, featured in the film series.

After [Brendan Dassey] confessed to helping his uncle rape and kill the photographer, [Brendan] Dassey asked police if he could go back to school to make his 1:30 class; amid a similar admission, [another innocent cognitively challenged Clarence] Burcham asked if he could go on a family camping trip.

'To me, that's pretty clear evidence that they don't really understand what's going on here,' [Lawrence White, a psychology professor at Beloit College in Wisconsin,] said. The men maybe thought, "I'm not going to go to prison for this, because I'm innocent. It'll all get straightened out." And they're very naive to think that.' (Lyden, InForum)

That law enforcement investigators induce false confessions (and lie about confessions) comes as no surprise to retired public defender, Reesa Evans.

Ms. Evans is a retired attorney who in 1999 referred Avery to the Midwest Innocence Project (MIP) just after the University of Wisconsin-Madison established an Innocence Project chapter in 1998.

Ms. Evans had been appointed by the Court to represent Avery in 1985. MIP Legal Director Tricia Bushnell is now assisting as local Wisconsin counsel for Steven Avery.

In December 1985, Steven Avery was convicted of a vicious rape, prosecuted by many of the same unsavory bunch of Manitowoc County officials who evidence shows later framed Avery for the murder of Teresa Halbach, as asserted in the 2005-06 trial, after Avery was exonerated and after he served 18 years in prison.

Freed in 2003, Avery filed a $36 million federal civil suit against Manitowoc County, naming several law enforcement officials as defendants.

The law enforcement officials exacted their revenge on Avery.

In an exclusive interview, Avery's 1985 attorney, Reesa Evans, says "bad faith" and systemic breakdowns in law enforcement in the criminal justice system lead her to the conclusion that part of the oath of office prosecutors take is often ignored, the commitment to see justice done.

Evans said also she is sympathetic to Brendan Dassey's false confession.

"It's difficult to understand false confessions. They happen more than people realize. Unless you have been through it, you do not realize the pressures involved," said Evans. "Interrogations involve an isolated situation with multiple cops, you can understand people would start feeling guilty when they are innocent. Investigators lie, they often will say, 'tell us this, and you can go home,' right before making an arrest."

Evans was invited last year to the premier of Making a Murderer in New York. She made the trip, viewed the first two episodes and said the series is "amazing."

Still, Evans found the series upsetting. "It was very difficult and most of all emotionally upsetting. All the feelings of powerlessness and frustration, [Dassey and Avery] went through," Evans said.

Evans is living in central Wisconsin. She did an interview with Newsweek, but said she is declining future interview requests about the documentary series.

"Laura and Moira interviewed me for about 15 hours. It's an amazing accomplishment. The series is looking at the flawed criminal justice system, as much as this particular case," said Evans.

In the 1985 case in which Avery was proven innocent, Evans notes likely prosecutorial misconduct, specifically possible Brady violations, the duty of the prosecution to disclose materially exculpatory evidence in the government's possession to the defense.

"There were possible exculpatory house-to-house results of police interviews that were not disclosed before [the 1985 trial and conviction of Avery for which he exonerated after serving 18 years]," said Evans.

In the second 2005-06 case against Avery in which Evans was not involved, Evans said she had not ever heard of a "preventative detention" and other misconduct to which Avery was subjected after he filed his civil suit.

Notes John Ferak in the Appleton Post Crescent:

Manitowoc County Sheriff's Lt. James Lenk and Sgt. Andrew Colborn were suspected of becoming aware of evidence during the 1990s that Avery did not commit the 1985 rape and ignoring the information, while Avery remained in prison. In October 2005, less than three weeks before Teresa Halbach is murdered, Lenk and Colborn were questioned during a sworn deposition connection with Avery's $36 million lawsuit against Manitowoc County. After Halbach disappeared, Lenk and Colborn thrust themselves into the investigation, focusing on Avery. Colborn interviewed Avery the same night Halbach is reported missing. Lenk interviewed Avery the next morning. Lenk approached Halbach's vehicle after it was found. Lenk found the keys to Halbach's vehicle inside Avery's bedroom in plain view after officers from Calumet County, the state Division of Criminal Investigation.

One hopes for criminal justice reforms revolutionary in nature in the face of the putative and defective system Robert Jackson warned us about in 1940.

In the meantime, trust in law enforcement is misplaced. You want to walk, don't talk because police lie.

Film Series Provokes Panicked and Irrational Defenders of Wrongful Prosecution

The Making a Murderer (on Netflix) is bringing forth the Evangelical certainty of the fools and fanatics defending a malicious prosecution.

One Donna Jean (Facebook) just knows the second wrongful prosecution of Steven Avery (and Brendan Dassey) is justified because, "it is like watching fox news. I don't need to watch its entirety to know what it is."

So comes the desperate protections, accompanied with the predictable level of low-grade commentary such as Ms. Jean's, of this miscarriage of justice chronicled in Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos' Making a Murderer (on Netflix).

Already a voting juror has contacted the two producers who appeared on the Today Show (Stump) Tuesday, alleging juror misconduct and fear for his/her life contingent on a guilty vote.

Meanwhile, the former Special Prosecutor Kenneth Kratz—a deceitful piece of human garbage—is desperately, (and rather passionately for a prosecutor drummed out of the Calumet County District Attorney's office for sexual misconduct in 2010), trying to defend this wrongful and malicious prosecution.

Understand why Scott Walker was elected governor of Wisconsin?

Not many big fans of Robert Jackson across rural Wisconsin:

"Any prosecutor who risks his day-to-day professional name for fair dealing to build up statistics of success has a perverted sense of practical values, as well as defects of character. Whether one seeks promotion to a judgeship, as many prosecutors rightly do, or whether he returns to private practice, he can have no better asset than to have his profession recognize that his attitude toward those who feel his power has been dispassionate, reasonable and just."
—Attorney General Robert H. Jackson, April 1, 1940; (U.S. DoJ)

A series of inflammatory news conferences in 2006 by special prosecutor Kenneth Kratz alleged that the nephew of Avery was taken into custody and "admitted his involvement and that of Avery in the [Teresa Halbach] death," (AP, March 10, 2006). A "motion filed in Manitowoc County Circuit Court said the release of 'lurid' [alleged] statements by Dassey, as well as information about physical evidence and other opinions about Avery's guilt, could make a fair trial impossible."

Readers can help by contacting the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation and ask why these press conferences did not violate Wisconsin Supreme Court Rule [SCR 20:3.6 Trial publicity], stating: "(a) A lawyer who is participating or has participated in the investigation or litigation of a matter shall not make an extrajudicial statement that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by means of public communication and will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding in the matter."

It does appear that Kratz also used his discretionary power in these press conferences to obtain a dishonest advantage over Steven Avery in violation of SCR 946.12(3):

946.12 Misconduct in public office.

(3) Whether by act of commission or omission, in the officer's or employee's capacity as such officer or employee exercises a discretionary power in a manner inconsistent with the duties of the officer's or employee's office or employment or the rights of others and with intent to obtain a dishonest advantage for the officer or employee or another;

Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation
Keith Sellen, Director
110 East Main Street, Suite 315
Madison, WI 53703-3383
Phone: (608)267-7274 or (877) 315-6941
Fax: (608) 267-1959 

Juror in Avery Case: Feared for 'Life" and Voted 'Guilty,' Believes Avery Was "Framed"

Wisconsin fiends make national news,
they wear a badge.

Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos appeared on the Today Show (Stump) yesterday and announced a juror had contacted them after viewing the film series, Making a Murderer (on Netflix), and said she or he had cast a guilty vote because out of fear “for their own safety.”

Said co-exec producer Ricciardi: "(The juror) told us that they believe Steven Avery was not proven guilty. [The juror] believe(s) Steven was framed by law enforcement and that he deserves a new trial, and if he receives a new trial, in their opinion it should take place far away from Wisconsin."

Amen.

Reports Scott Stump:

There was behind-the-scenes vote-trading going on during the trial,the juror told the filmmakers, and the verdicts on each count were 'a compromise.'

'That was the actual word the juror used and went on to describe the jurors ultimately trading votes in the jury room and explicitly discussing, "If you vote guilty on this count, I will vote not guilty on this count," Ricciardi said.

One hopes the wrongfully convicted and the police-prosecutor state become the topic of news reports repeatedly.

Juror misconduct of this nature is grounds for a new trial, experts say.

The series also shows multiple instances of prosecutorial misconduct by law enforcement personnel, not pointed out, under Wisconsin Supreme Court rules governing attorney ethics.

For example: Wisconsin Supreme Court Rule [SCR 20:3.6 Trial publicity], stating: "(a) A lawyer who is participating or has participated in the investigation or litigation of a matter shall not make an extrajudicial statement that the lawyer knows or reasonably should know will be disseminated by means of public communication and will have a substantial likelihood of materially prejudicing an adjudicative proceeding in the matter."

And more broadly, Misconduct in Public Office:

Any public officer or public employee who does any of the following is guilty of a Class I felony:
946.12(1)
(1) Intentionally fails or refuses to perform a known mandatory, nondiscretionary, ministerial duty of the officer's or employee's office or employment within the time or in the manner required by law; or
(2) In the officer's or employee's capacity as such officer or employee, does an act which the officer or employee knows is in excess of the officer's or employee's lawful authority or which the officer or employee knows the officer or employee is forbidden by law to do in the officer's or employee's official capacity; or
(3) Whether by act of commission or omission, in the officer's or employee's capacity as such officer or employee exercises a discretionary power in a manner inconsistent with the duties of the officer's or employee's office or employment or the rights of others and with intent to obtain a dishonest advantage for the officer or employee or another; or
(4) In the officer's or employee's capacity as such officer or employee, makes an entry in an account or record book or return, certificate, report or statement which in a material respect the officer or employee intentionally falsifies; or
(5) Under color of the officer's or employee's office or employment, intentionally solicits or accepts for the performance of any service or duty anything of value which the officer or employee knows is greater or less than is fixed by law.

Stay tuned. Ken Kratz and these other lousy bastards in Manitowoc County may get what's coming to them.

Film on Police Frame-up in Manty, Wisconsin Drawing National Attention

Update: Making A Murderer: Anonymous claims to have evidence that Netflix documentary’s subject, Steven Avery, is innocent, (Griffin, The Independent).

It would appear a significant chunk of the American people have had enough of the routine police and prosecutorial misconduct.

From Chicago to the coasts to Ferguson and up to Manitowoc, Wisconsin, the forces preying on the public wear a badge or represent the state. They are a grave threat to the citizenry, (Schilling, The Guardian).

Nowhere is this anti-American dynamic captured more poignantly than in the new film series, Making a Murderer (on Netflix) by Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos.

"When the prosecutor is at his best is one of the most beneficent forces in our society, when he acts from malice or other base motives, he is one of the worst," warned the great jurist and public intellectual, Robert Jackson, (U.S. DoJ). Jackson's worst fears, made famous in his 1940 address as U.S. attorney general, are a fact of life today.

CBS News has a segment this morning.

WISC-TV (Madison, Wisconsin) is airing another piece today and tonight in which Madison attorney Dean Strang is interviewed.

Strang is featured throughout the Making a Murderer series fighting corruption and betrayals by the Manitowoc Sheriff's office and multi-jurisdictional prosecutors and unscrupulous criminal investigators.

Strang has had plenty of experience defending the public against prosecutors gone wild.

From his footage in Making a Murderer it's clear Strang has had enough.

Film Series Show Wisconsin Criminal Justice as Systemic Scandal

Wisconsin fiends make national news
again. This time the fiends wear a badge.

Routine Police-Prosecutor Misconduct Highlights Need for Independent Conviction Integrity Unit

In Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demos' documentary series, Making a Murderer (on Netflix), the Wisconsin criminal justice system is exposed as a leviathan run by liars, criminals and jackals (and the judges who protect them), a lawless system of unethical men and women in two infamous cases.

Everyone went along for the ride in the Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey wrongful convictions, from liberal officials in the Wisconsin Department of Justice to the Green Bay press to the progressive daily, The Capital Times (Madison, Wisconsin) (March 14, 2007 editorial).

The unindicted criminals and most repulsive actors are Wisconsin local law enforcement—abetted by the state attorney general's office, the FBI and Wisconsin judges—in the case of the innocent-but-convicted Avery and young Mr. Dassey, human beings who were "ground up and spit out by this 'system,'" as described by attorney Dean Strang, one of the few rays of light in this spectacle.

Making a Murderer chronicles the 1985 wrongful conviction of Steven Avery who "spent 18 years in prison for a sexual assault that DNA evidence later proved he did not commit. Avery was released from prison in 2003 after his conviction was overturned, but two years later he was charged in the horrifying murder of a young photographer named Teresa Halbach. At the time, Avery had filed a $36 million civil lawsuit against Manitowoc County for his wrongful conviction," (Butler, Washington Post).

Avery and Dassey are the victims of the retaliatory framing scheme, revenge perpetrated by the Manitowoc County, (Wisconsin) Sheriff's office and the multi-jurisdictional malicious prosecutions begun because Avery was about to expose the ugly realities of law enforcement in his $36 million civil lawsuit. Both are serving life sentences.

What is illustrated so vividly by Ricciardi and Demois is the extent to which prosecutors and the police enjoy a license to lie, slander and destroy the lives of innocents, without any integrity checks on their misconduct.

Making a Murderer maps the dystopian landscape in which the state, the 'Sovereign,' arrests, prosecutes and secures the convictions of as many 'offenders' as possible and locks them away in a huge complex of 'correctional' institutions either subsidized by the citizenry or publicly traded in the securities markets, a disgrace that Scott Walker and Tommy Thompson inflicted with their work on behalf of for-profit prison companies such as the Corrections Corporation of America (CXW), (New York Times), (ALEC Exposed, PRWatch) (Mal Contends).

The Avery-Dassey documentary is a masterpiece of journalism begun after Laura Ricciardi and Moira Demo read a piece in the New York Times.

It's critical to note some of the perpetrators.

Special prosecutor Kenneth Kratz, a deceitful piece of human garbage who is now the apparent recipient of death threats after the airing of Making a Murderer since Dec. 18, 2015 (Purl, WGN). Krats is in private practice now in Superior, Wisconsin.

Source: State Bar of Wisconsin

There's Brendan Dassey's attorney, the despicable Len Kachinsky, who with his investigator plotted against and ridiculed his own client, an offense that draws no objection from the toothless Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation.

Kachinsky is hiding out today in Outagamie County in Appleton and his name has been scrubbed from the law offices of Robert J. Sisson website.

Law Offices of Sisson and Kachinsky

The State Bar of Wisconsin indicates Sisson's firm as "Sisson Kachinsky Law Offices."

Kachinsky threw Dassey, a cognitively challenged 16-year-old, to two investigators, Mark Wiegert, (sergeant at the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), and Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation investigator), who weren't looking for the truth but trying (successfully) to get Dassey to mutter words portrayed as admissions of guilt and supporting a lurid, contrived tale of guilt of Avery in the revenge prosecution (Ferek, Appleton Post-Crescent).

Wiegert and Fassbender were on Dassey like jackals in interrogations, a display of the whole disgrace that the Wisconsin criminal justice system has become.

On a final note, former Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen (R) (2007-2015) announced on May 2, 2008, these human garbage, Wiegert and Fassbender, received the Meritorious Service Award from the Wisconsin Association of Homicide Investigators, (Wisconsin Dept. of Justice).

Not that Van Hollen's predecessor performed any better in the Avery affair.

"Peggy Lautenschlager, Wisconsin's Attorney General in 2003, directed the Wisconsin Department of Justice to investigate the merits of the 1985 wrongful conviction of Steven Avery. The DOJ released an 18-page report on Dec. 17, 2003, finding 'there is no basis to bring criminal charges or assert ethics violations against anyone involved in the investigation and prosecution of this case,'" (Ferak, Appleton Post-Crescent). Lautenschlager did what was politically expedient.

Except for the families of the wrongfully convicted and the defense attorneys, Dean Strang and Jerome Buting and the Innocence Project, few emerged from this affair appearing anything but indecent and corrupt.

In the Avery-Dassey scandal, Wisconsin law enforcement, the Wisconsin press, and the Wisconsin judicial system resemble nothing so much as benighted fools and corrupt betrayers of the public from Alabama.

Wonder if anything reformist in nature will become of this indecency as a result of the film. Revolutionary change is needed.

Person of Interest Hits Wrongfully Convicted for Serving in U.S. Military

Update: Shortly after this post appeared Glenda Johnson took down her comments in a Facebook response (Dec. 15; 7:01 p.m.) to a WKOW-TV (Madison) report. Ms. Johnson's over-heated response indicates a person who really wants this case closed for good, and she remains a suspect whose home the victim was heading before her body was found some two weeks later.
 ---
The day after a press conference this week announcing a $10,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of the person responsible for the 1994 killing of Sarah Gonstead in Madison, a person of interest in a private investigator's probe has come forward and stated she is "100% positive the right person is behind bars."

Glenda Johnson said she bases her certainty in part on the fact that Penny Brummer, the wrongfully convicted, served her country in the United States Armed Forces.

Writes Johnson in a Facebook response (Dec. 15; 7:01 p.m.) to a WKOW-TV (Madison) report by WKOW journalist, Matt Cash: "She [Penny] had her share of issues when she lived in California. She was in the military... A MP. Plus.... I am 100% positive the right person is behind bars ... ."

Penny Brummer did enlist in the Air Force right out of high school in 1987, and after basic training was transferred to Castle Air Force Base in California assigned to base security. She was honorably discharged in 1993, (Berry, p.14).

The full Facebook post by Ms. Johnson reads: "Well lets just say this... The facts on the [WKOW] page/link are wrong. They never made it back to the east side of Madison... Timeline doesn't add up. Last place they were seen together was 1.5 miles from where her body was found... Penny was a very controlling person.. She had her share of issues when she lived in California. She was in the military... A MP. Plus.... I am 100% positive the right person is behind bars. How many times do kids... Even adults lie to their parents. It's a ploy for money because the police have closed this case.... And Penny's mom says ... Penny wouldn't do it."

A reply to Johnson by a co-author of a detailed book on the homicide, by Sheila Berry, reads in full: "Glenda Johnson We have the police reports and the transcripts of everything -- initial appearance, preliminary, motions, trial and sentencing. It is clear from police reports that YOU raised the hue and cry that Sarah never made it to your house, before anyone knew she was missing. Did the police get that wrong? How about that 3 hour gap after you left work -- so upset -- but didn't go home? That's the same time frame when an independent witness saw someone dumping a bright pink "bundle" that turned out to be Sarah's body. As Shakspeare said, methinks the lady doth protest too much."

Why Glenda Johnson—who lived in the home to which Ms. Gonstead was last reported to have been intent on visiting—is so vested to see Penny Brummer behind bars and affirm the integrity of a clearly faulty police investigation is interesting, certainly pertinent to the 1994 criminal investigation.

The police quickly developed their theory and declined investigating leads disconfirming or not supporting their theory, (tunnel vision in the vernacular of criminal justice), and barely questioned Ms. Johnson. The Dane County District Attorney's office went along for the ride.

Sarah Gonstead was last seen on March 24, 1994. Her body was recovered on April 9, 1994 in Pine Bluff, an unincorporated community west of Madison. "In less than a week authorities had zeroed in on 24-year-old Penny Brummer. The last person to admit to seeing Gonstead alive after their night of binge drinking [together]," (Pabich, WMTV (Madison).

Notes author and attorney Sheila Berry on her website:

Witness David Zoromski, who reported seeing a suspicious man standing by the open passenger door of a parked pickup truck exactly where Sarah's body was later found, was told by a Dane County Sheriff's Deputy, 'What you saw is all very interesting, but we have a suspect and it doesn't fit.' The man seen by Mr. Zoromski matched the description of the person Penny said she saw Sarah talking to near the Taco Bell at East Washington Avenue and North Oak Street in Madison, after she dropped her off that night. Police identified him and knew he was a convicted felon with a long history of violence toward women -- but they never followed up on this lead.

The blood alcohol level in Sarah's liver suggests a time of death several hours after Penny was back at her Spring Green home, watching TV. 

The dearth of evidence and many facts do not fit, and do not support a conviction, and Penny Brummer remains in prison serving a life sentence.

Wisconsin Wrongful Conviction and a $10,000 Reward for At-large Killer

Advocates for Penny Brummer - Wrongfully Convicted in 1994

"Investigators can prematurely arrive at conclusions that are incorrect and then focus on information that supports those plots and conclusions and disregard other information that comes in that does not support those conclusions. That's a process called 'tunnel vision.' And it can and it does lead to conviction of the innocent. Penny [Brummer's] case features many of these same features."
—John Pray, Co-founder of the University of Wisconsin-Madison Innocence Project

Advocates of Penny Brummer are working to correct a 21-year-old injustice in the wrongful conviction of Penny Brummer.

Penny Brummer was convicted of killing Sarah Gonstead in 1994 despite no weapon, no forensic evidence, no motive, and literally no evidence of any kind tying Brummer to the undetermined crime scene.

The police investigation was replete with anti-lesbian bigotry playing a big part in Penny's conviction, and is a case study of confirmation bias. Several jurors expressed disapproval of lesbian and gay relationships in jury questionnaires.

Police investigators questioned Penny's co-workers about her body language, 'how she carried herself at work;' her persona apparently appearing unladylike behavior in an atavistic conception of gender types.

A $10,000 reward has been offered for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer of Sarah Gonstead murdered in 1994 for which Brummer was convicted and given a life sentence for first-degree intentional homicide.

Madison, Wisconsin media—WISC-TV (Madison), WKOW-TV (Madison)—and advocates for Brummer heavily covered the news of the $10,000 reward as a private investigator, Rikki Glen, continues an ongoing investigation

Rikki Glen, Penny's mother, Nancy Brummer, and John Pray of the Wisconsin Innocence Project held a press conference yesterday in front of the Dane County Courthouse.

"The evidence [in the Brummer case] was beyond, beyond thin," said Ms. Glen at the press conference.

The reward for the 21-year old conviction in Brummer v. Wisconsin comes as Dane County has made strides in combating LGBTQ bigotry, and after the win-convictions-for-reason-of-advancing-careers dynamic in the legal community in Wisconsin and Dane County resulted in incarcerations that shamed the criminal justice system.

"Today, we are a more enlightened community than 20 years ago, and Nancy Brummer, and advocates are optimistic that champions for truth will come forward and our community, police and prosecutors will stand up for truth and free Penny Brummer," said Glen.

Said John Pray of the Wisconsin Innocence Project at the press conference: 

It's been over 20 years since Penny Brummer has been convicted of the murder of Sarah Gonstead. It's a very long time and it's been a very difficult 20 years for Penny, for the family, and for her friends and many supporters. In 1994 when Penny was convicted this country was at the beginning of a revolution in the criminal justice system. This revolution was brought about by the first uses of DNA which led to the formation of the Innocence movement. At that time, for the first time, we all became very aware of the indisputable fact that it is possible to convict people of serious crimes—murder, sex assaults—and be completely innocent. We've also learned that this happens a lot more than we are comfortable with and a lot more than we ever thought was possible. In the years since then, we've seen 100s of examples where DNA evidence has proved beyond any doubt the system has grievously erred and that the wrong person was in prison. A number of those people are from Wisconsin. Wisconsin is not immune from that. Some of those people served decades in prison before they were proved innocent. In many of those cases DNA led not only to the release of the innocent person but to the arrest and conviction of the actual murderer or the actual perpetrator who have, by the way, gone on to commit other serious crimes because they have been let free.

We learn from these exonerations what went wrong with the system. And for the most part it isn't because there are evil police and prosecutors who are trying to get it wrong. They're generally good people, they're trying to solve crimes and serve justice. But even when people are acting in good faith there are still many ways that things can go tragically wrong: Eyewitness identification is often unreliable. Witnesses' memories are prone to mistakes. Investigators can prematurely arrive at conclusions that are incorrect and then focus on information that supports those plots and conclusions and disregard other information that comes in that does not support those conclusions. That's a process called 'tunnel vision.' And it can and it does lead to conviction of the innocent. Penny's case features many of these same features.

[Note: Since covering the Brummer case, several jurists, advocates and other well-informed sources have told me on background coverage of this case here has on some occasions borders on ad hominem regarding the presiding judge of Brummer v. Wisconsin, Patrick Fiedler. They point to Fiedler's well-regarded status in the Wisconsin legal community, his CV (ballotpedia), attest to Fiedler as an honorable jurist and brilliant intellect, his swift exoneration of Forest Shomberg in the 2011 wrongful conviction case, and currently his work as an effective defense attorney working to defend the rights of the citizenry of Wisconsin. These assessments are often informed by those who have worked directly and closely with Fielder. This site is indexed in Lexis-Nexis and Bloomberg's Westlaw as a legal research document, and thorough commentary and analysis ought note the above facts.]

Below is the statement on Penny Brummer read by private investigator, Rikki Glen at the press conference held yesterday:

I'm Rikki Glen, a Wisconsin licensed private investigator retained by advocates challenging the wrongful conviction of Penny Brummer.

I am going to read a short statement about why we are here today, followed by statements from Penny's mother, Nancy and John Pray from the UW Innocence Project.

If you have questions we will be glad to try and answer them after we have finished.

Twenty years ago, Penny Brummer was convicted of killing Sarah Gonstead despite no weapon, no forensic evidence, no motive, and no evidence of any kind tying Brummer to the undetermined crime scene. It has long been asserted that anti-lesbian bias played a large part in Penny's conviction.

When I was asked to help with this case, earlier this year, I had a vague recollection of what transpired. As I was reading through the police reports I was shocked and bothered by some of the things that I read.

For instance, there was an alternate suspect. After Penny dropped off Sarah she saw her talking with some people. Penny remembered seeing an old gray van with distinctive bug eye windows. A few days later, Penny was looking for the van when she spotted it not far from the 3054 Club and Taco Bell. Penny gave the license number to her friend's mother, who turned it over to police. The license traced back to a person who had a long record of felonies against women. He admitted he frequented the area where Penny saw him talking to Sarah, and he said that he was the only one who ever drove his vehicle. His driver's license was revoked at the time, so it was a crime for him to drive, but police didn't seem to notice that. He was interviewed briefly, told them he wasn't at that location on March 14th, and that ended the interview.

Police clearly had 'tunnel vision' in building a case against Penny, another common feature in wrongful convictions.

Another example a witness came forward and reported seeing a suspicious man standing by the open passenger door of a parked pickup truck exactly where Sarah's body was later found. This suspicious man matched the description of the person Penny said she saw Sarah talking to near the Taco Bell at East Washington Avenue and North Oak Street in Madison. He also noticed what looked to him to be a pink duffle bag on the ground next to the truck. Sarah was wearing a pink jacket when she disappeared. The police told the witness 'This is all very interesting, but we already have a suspect, and this doesn't fit.'

Today, I announce that a $10,000 reward has been established for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the killer of Sarah Gonstead. Advocates have set up a new toll-free number, (800) 407-1178, for tipsters seeking the $10,000 reward.

A decent and honest district attorney's office, we believe, will not defend this prosecution, because today we are a more enlightened community than 20 years ago, and Nancy Brummer, and advocates are optimistic that champions for truth will come forward and our community, police and prosecutors will stand up for truth and free Penny Brummer.

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast," said Alexander Pope in his An Essay on Man (1734).

For Penny Brummer, her family, her extended family of supporters and in the name of justice for Sarah Gonstead, one hopes truth is soon realized.

Police-Prosecutor State Must End

Updated - "The sentencing reform bill introduced in the Senate on Thursday falls far short of what is needed, but it is a crucial first step on the long path toward unwinding the federal government’s decades-long reliance on prisons as the answer to every ill," notes today's New York Times.

It's not just prison sentences for the guilty, it's the insane police-prosecutor state composed of individuals who have no remorse and blind ambition in arresting, prosecuting and imprisoning innocent Americans.

Every day in Dane County former District Attorney Brian Blanchard (2001-2010) (now a state appellate judge) and former Dane County (Wisconsin) Judge Patrick Fiedler, (now a partner with Hurley, Burish & Stanton, S.C.), draw a level breath one wonders how much the innocent Penny Brummer they convicted weighs on their minds.

Brummer is a lesbian, served in the armed forces, and hence must be guilty of murder. That's the size of their case in 1994. Imbecilic police work, bigotry and careerism.

Can this happen in America? This is America, "a leviathan unmatched in human history," (Loury, Boston Review).

And Blanchard and Fiedler are sleeping fine.

To understand the character of Blanchard and Fiedler, consider this is the same prosecutor-judge combo—so desperate for career advancement—they prosecuted the late, eminent UW-Madison historian Stanley Kutler, (1934-2015). Kutler's charged crime? Yelling at his health insurance company, and opining the bureaucrats' company should be blown up.

This brought a Class B misdemeanor charge filed by Blanchard in 2005, ridiculed across academic circles and among jurists, and ultimately settled with a $149.00 fine.

Fiedler didn't toss the case, Blanchard didn't drop the case.

Blanchard and Fiedler got their headlines.

Kutler emailed and called me a couple of years later after reading some pieces about then U.S. Atty Steven Biskupic's prosecutions of a veteran on a trumped-up "wire fraud" charges, numerous 'voter fraud' charges and the infamous Georgia Thompson prosecution.

Kutler suggested in good humor that Blanchard should consider taking 30 days and reading up on Robert Jackson and his disquisitions on prosecutorial discretion.

The current Dane County District Attorney should do the same, and consider the proposition that apropos to Penny Brummer, and every citizen, the law can afford to be just. And there is no imperative to protect a wrongful prosecution, emphatically when the innocent Ms. Brummer has been sitting in prison for 19 years.

If you have any information that could lead to the arrest and conviction of the person/persons responsible for the death of Sarah Gonstead or the death of Kelly Nolan, please contact: sheila0326@gmail.com.