Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Kaul. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Kaul. Sort by date Show all posts

Feb 1, 2019

Wisconsin's New AG, Josh Kaul, Shows Colors in Delaying Wrongful Conviction Litigation

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) proves
himself as corrupt and hypocritical as his drunken,
late mother in protecting wrongful convictions in
Steven Avery's current post-conviction litigation.

'Very Disappointing Response by Wisconsin Attorney General'


Update: Steven Avery's post-conviction attorneys file a reply brief in state appellate court.
 ---
Madison, Wisconsin — A sub-culture of people who believe it's wrong to convict and imprison innocents were waiting for the new Wisconsin attorney general to weigh in on a new motion in Steven Avery's post-conviction litigation featured in the Making a Murderer docuseries.

The news was delivered yesterday.

Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) disappointed, continuing his predecessor Brad Schimel's knee-jerk and corrupt reaction against any post-conviction motions that shine light on this miscarriage of justice.

Kaul proved anew Wisconsin Democrats are as complicit as Republicans in defending wrongful convictions, deflating hopes the Wisconsin police-prosecutor state is under serious challenge by reformists.

Post-conviction attorney Kathleen Zellner— who represents the wrongfully convicted Steven Avery featured in the Making a Murderer docuseries— filed an explosive motion Jan 24, 2019 seeking a hearing because the Calumet County Sheriff's Office secretly transferred evidence of a murder victim, Teresa Halbach, to private custody in 2011, in clear violation of state statutes that govern preservation of physical evidence collected, subject to criminal investigations.

But Kaul is just another corrupt prosecutor who believes defending the indefensible must prevail over truth and justice for the innocent, lest the local police states such as Manitowoc and Calumet counties are exposed as corrupt and criminal.

Kaul's brand of politics goes back a long time. Make no mistake, what Kaul is doing is calculated politics, and not procedural just-doing-my-job fare.

Kaul disingenuously argued that Avery in seeking relief is delaying the litigation (Appleton Post Crescent).

Unfortunately, for the cause of justice, the state appellate court hearing this post-conviction litigation is full of the same type of corrupt, hypocritical jurists as Kaul who think protecting the reputation of Wisconsin law enforcement means imprisoning the innocent.

Wisconsin Democrats often make their political bones by persecuting and imprisoning as many people as possible, preferably black and brown people, then present themselves to the public as progressive prosecutors, ala Kamala Harris, Democratic presidential candidate who has been courting Hillary Clinton donors since 2017 for her prosecutors are-for-us run.

What's particularly galling here is Kaul's mother, Wisconsin Attorney General Peg Lautenschlager (2003-07), did precisely the same thing with the police crusade against Avery, covering for the first wrongful conviction against Avery, and enabling later frame-ups against Avery.

Lautenschlager subsequently raced around the state to highlight drug prosecutions, until she was pulled over by the Dodge County Sheriff Dept in 2004 for drunken driving, which she tried to minimize. Lautenschlager was a good person. I knew her. She was also a flaming hypocrite.

With respect to Steven Avery, I guess if lynching is a family affair, that makes it okay, to Kaul's way of thinking.

Kaul's action is provoking derision on social media, and rightfully so:

We in Wisconsin expected better.
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Jan 14, 2019

New Wisconsin Attorney General Is X-Factor in Making a Murderer Case

One hopes for justice against dirty cops
such as Manitowoc County Sheriff'
Lt. James Lenk. Lenk infamously
"found the (incriminating) keys to
(murder victim) Halbach's vehicle inside
Avery's bedroom in plain view after
officers from Calumet County,
the state Division of Criminal Investigation
and Two Rivers Police Department
apparently did not see them in previous
searches," (Appleton Post-Crescent).
Now, a "'never-before-seen video'
shows that evidence against
the subject of the hit documentary
Making a Murderer must have been
planted or fabricated, defense
attorney Kathleen Zellner tells
Newsweek." This is a frame-up in
plain sight. The work of the new
Wisconsin attorney general will
determine the lives of the innocent.

Josh Kaul's character, or lack thereof will decide fate of innocents


Madison, Wisconsin — The truth shall make you free is an article of faith for the wrongfully convicted.

In the Wisconsin criminal case featured in Making a Murderer, an obvious case of small-town injustice is kept shielded from a new trial, lest the duplicity, corruption and misconduct defining the Manitowoc County District Attorney and Sheriff's Dept become more of a spectacle.

Still, 2019 will be a year to remember in Wisconsin legal history. Forget procedure and the rule of law. One man will decide whether the innocent live free, or die behind bars.

Not Sheboygan County Circuit Judge Angela Sutkiewicz presiding over Steven Avery's post-conviction litigation. She will likely be bounced off the case. A bureaucrat and politician has to have her priorities.

There is a new attorney general and governor in Wisconsin.

The election of Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) and Gov. Tony Evers (D) are generally presented as good news for post-conviction relief of innocents in Wisconsin.

But Gov. Evers is an empty suit on criminal justice reform and civil liberties, as Evers is on most public policy.

But Attorney General Josh Kaul appears equipped to restore the good name of the Wisconsin Dept of Justice that functioned as an adjunct of the Republican Party for the last 12 years.

Kaul had lifelong exposure to what Wisconsin police and prosecutors are capable of, before serving in the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Maryland.

Kaul did not of course campaign on the rights of the accused, post-conviction relief, challenging police misconduct or the importance of liberty in American society.

The mob that is the electorate does not comprehend such matters deriving from Constitutional niceties, though this condition may be improving.

Josh Kaul, Fond du Lac-Oshkosh boy made good, will likely not become another Roberts Jackson.

But supporters of the wrongfully convicted Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey look to Kaul with modest hopes: To work with Avery's post-conviction attorney, Kathleen Zellner, and good-faith adherence to post-conviction procedure and transparency.

In so many words, simple decency, ethics and the light of day, a professional climate that cannot sustain these wrongful convictions anymore.

Carole Davis, a supporter of the wrongfully convicted, asks of Josh Kaul in part, "are you an honest man."
I don't know the answer to Davis' question. I do know conviction, imprisoning and defending the indefeasible is standard fare of too many jurists who out of convenience and career destroy the lives of those whom they know to be innocent. Penny Brummer is another living example.

Josh Kaul is on political probation with this Wisconsin citizen. I have seen too much to be surprised by anything Kaul may do vis s vis Avery and Dassey.

Surveying social media the last several months, lay supporters of the innocents appear scared, knowing that a dedicated attorney general who would act from malice and other base motives is among the most dangerous people this republic can produce.

 But who would have thought that an obscure Netflix docu-series could so move millions so that a provincial and corrupt county in east-central Wisconsin becomes the focus of demands for simple justice?

Social currents, ripples of creation and good deed, nourished by light can conspire to make one person ensure that Avery and Dassey go free.

Who is Josh Kaul?

Less than a drop in the great, blue motion of the sunlit sea, a drop who may yet sparkle through history and the lives of innocents.
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Oct 20, 2022

Halloween Killer Victim's Mother — Wisc Atty Gen Joshua Kaul 'Not There for Me,' 'Doesn't Care,' 'No Help'

A view of Amory Street near Rose Avenue in Fond du Lac,
Wisconsin Saturday November 4, 2017. Lisa Ann French
disappeared from this area on Halloween in 1973. Her body
was discovered a short time later on McCabe Road, northeast
of Fond du Lac. The French family fights to keep the killer
safely away from the community year after year.
Doug Raflik/USA Today Network-Wisconsin
Democrat Attorney General Joshua Kaul Should Be Booted from Office

"You want some help to find out what's going on, and he (Joshua Kaul) doesn't help. He don't care about the victims."
 — Mother of victim of Halloween killer

Commentary

Madison, Wisconsin — "People in Fond du Lac and around the state still recall how the little trick-or-treater's brutal death changed forever how they think about Halloween," reads the Fond du Lac Reporter in 2017.

The story is about the nine-year-old murder-molestation victim's Mother and her family's struggle to protect their community and achieve some manner of peace.

The Halloween killer of 1973 lives forever in the Fox River Valley.

I grew up in Fond du Lac, Fondy, and it still gives me pleasure to think of Bob's Pizza, Joe's Fox Hut, many friends and the word, Proust.

But there is another side to Fond du Lac, the Halloween Killer of 1973. Craven politicians like Attorney General Joshua Kaul, who could not care less about victims and their lifelong fight for justice.

As the killer Gerald Turner was almost released, Attorney General Kaul failed the Mother of Lisa French, as reference in a TV spot, while Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney provided support and effective advocacy.

Kaul is the Democrat creation of Clintonite Democrats who view crime victims and the wrongfully convicted as little people who do not count except as pawns in Democrats' repulsive quest for power.

Now, Kaul is drawing justifiable anger for his despicable blowing off the Mother of the nine-year-old girl killed and molested by Gerald Turner.

The Mother in return is the object of Democrat social media trolls for whom people, whether they be Mothers of crime victims or the wrongfully convicted, do not exist for Wisconsin's Democrat Attorney General and friends.

The trolls brand anyone criticizing Kaul as "unhinged," while neglecting even one word of support for Ms. French.

Democrats are the worst, if it were in my power, I would vote them all out of office.

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Feb 12, 2019

Wisconsin Is a State of Men and Women Because the Rule of Law Is Perishing; Attorney General Josh Kaul Is Complicit and Insidious

The Wisconsin Department of Justice continues to betray
and destroy as the world watches the degradation in
post-conviction litigation against Steven Avery.
Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) is on point, in
defending the work of disgraced ex-DA, Ken Kratz,
and the criminality of Wisconsin law enforcement.
The Whole World Is Watching Wisconsin -

Post-conviction attorney, Kathleen Zellner, will be offering a live question-and-answer session on Twitter, Feb. 12 at Noon.

Update: In response to questions from our friends overseas: Targeting people is in itself tyrannical.

Wisconsin does not have a state Grand Jury system. But when someone is transformed from a person of interest to a "target" in a probe or a grand jury (in other states) or a federal investigation, formal procedures and notifications kick in to protect the soon-to-be-accused.

Not so in the Avery case. Law enforcement targeted Steven Avery and then set about to plant evidence, manipulate and manufacture evidence, even destroying exculpatory evidence.

This is tyrannical and despotic — the opposite of what American criminal justice is supposed to be. And this is what Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul is defending, in an unethical fashion to boot.
--
Madison, Wisconsin — "Despotism is a plan alone, without law and without rule, leading all its will and caprices," intoned the satirist, poet, and social contract theorist, Montesquieu. "To become truly great, one has to stand with people, not above them."

In opposing post-conviction litigation against the wrongful convicted Steven Avery, (Making Murderer), Wisconsin Attorney Josh Kaul (D) is offering polemics, pointless antagonism and defense of apparent criminality and willful violation of constitutional rights and state law committed by Wisconsin law enforcement. Avery's rights, no matter the misconduct of law enforcement, are to be opposed, believes Kaul.

Kaul is delaying the inevitable, defending a miscarriage of justice and doing dishonor to Wisconsin.

I have lived in Wisconsin all my life, and I do not see the bottom, though Josh Kaul is dredging the filth of Wisconsin as he blocks, obscures and delays, motivated from a pathology only Kaul can truly explain.

Post-conviction attorney, Kathleen Zellner, will be offering a question-and-answer session on Twitter, Feb. 12 at Noon.

The event follows a new filing in Avery's case before the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District Two.

And it follows new evidence demonstrating outright criminality, banditry, by multiple law enforcement jurisdictions.

Wisconsin media and citizens the world-over will tune in.

Yet, as each new piece of evidence pried from east-central Wisconsin law enforcement reveals duplicity and willful targeting of an innocent man, innocence advocates are already speculating what remedies exist to meet the challenge of systemic criminality.
To paraphrase Archibald Cox: Whether we shall continue to be a state of laws is now for ultimately the Wisconsin people to decide.
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Mar 24, 2019

Making a Murderer—Hearing Will Focus on Conduct by Ex-DA, DoJ and Current Attorney General

Attorneys for the wrongfully convicted Steven Avery
will be afforded the opportunity effectively to put
the state of Wisconsin on trial for its conduct, per
the Wisconsin Court of Appeals. Feb. 25, 2019 order.
Innocence workers seek legal relief, likely to be granted or
conceded to at some point, by presenting the factual
record now directly in front of a judicial hearing
that the Dept of Justice worked to prevent.
Misrepresentations discovered in 2019, via a massive FOIA
document dump received in May 2018, are among the legion
of misconduct, deceit and state criminality used to keep
an innocent man in prison (p. 2. March 11, 2019 Supplemental
§ 974.06 Motion for Post-Conviction Relief Pursuant to
State's Violation of Wis. Stat § 968.205
and Youngblood v. Arizona).
Update III: A ruling handed down in August in Manitowoc County Circuit Court is an adverse ruling for Steven Avery, the protagonist and defendant in Wisconsin's Making a Murderer post-conviction litigation.

The ruling was widely expected. Judge Angela W. Sutkiewicz again failed to schedule any proceedings.

Yet, Sutkiewicz divined that the state destruction of evidence accomplished by a conspiracy that includes two of the DoJ attorneys now defending the conviction in post-conviction litigation was done in good faith, and what the state purported to be a murder victim's remains were not scientifically established as a murder victim's remains, hence the state may secretly destroy the evidence it believed are the remains of a murder victim, and the defendant has no recourse.

Absurd.

Writes Sutkiewicz: "The report of Deputy Hawkins indicates that he, Sergeant Investigator Mark Wiegert, Attorney Thoman Fallon and Attorney Norman Gahn removed materials stored in evidence, and released them to the Halbach family."

Corrupt judges like Judge Angela W. Sutkiewicz are a disgrace.

Can you imagine if Fallon and Gahn had to explain themselves as witnesses in open court? 

Wisconsin Attorney General Joshua Kaul continues to allow two DoJ attorneys who disregarded Wisconsin Evidence Preservation statute to work this post-conviction litigation, though their conduct is suspect and worth of a criminal investigation.

Update II: The Feb 25, 2019 appellate court order mandating "any proceedings necessary to address [Avery's] claims" points to a hearing after briefing at the circuit court to which the case has been sent back.

The Manitowoc circuit court has not set a timeline, a calendar, hence references here to the contemplated hearing use "to-be-scheduled."

The headline should be be changed to reflect the 'as-yet-ordered' status to clarify the hearing has not been scheduled (as noted) meaning not yet ordered.

The appellate court notes the case's "extensive history," that in this case means voluminous law enforcement misconduct that cannot be reasonably adjudicated at circuit court without a hearing, consistent with the appellate court's order of "necessary proceedings" to produce the appellate court's stated desired "ruling," (p. 3).

Updated - Madison, Wisconsin—The Wisconsin criminal justice system is working against an innocent man.

Not an unusual state of affairs in Wisconsin, but this case—featured in the Emmy-winning Netflix documentary Making a Murderer—promises to reveal a spectacular law enforcement scandal in a to-be-scheduled May hearing in Manitowoc County that the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DoJ) worked to prevent. [See Appeal Number 2017AP002288 for case history.]

Steven Avery, the twice-wrongfully convicted man, faces multiple Wisconsin law enforcement personnel engaging in misconduct.

Yet no members of Wisconsin law enforcement have stepped forward as whistle-blowers, out of a sense of decency, to simply state, framing Steven Avery is wrong.

Disgraced ex-District Attorney Ken Kratz

Avery's quest for exoneration is a legal war against the work of Ken Kratz, the disgraced ex-district attorney who is a sex offender (sexual harassment, and outright assault allegations), who can no longer practice law in Wisconsin because of a suspended license.

Former Calumet County District Attorney,
Ken Kratz, helped frame, and prosecuted
the wrongfully convicted Steven Avery, say
Avery's advocates. Kratz' law license
is suspended in Wisconsin.
Kratz' legal and personal reputations have taken such a beating that he is attempting to sell the Internet domain name of his private law office, Kratzlawfirm.

Kratz Law Firm, LLC [Entity ID K040945] dissolved in February 2012, according to records at the Wisconsin Dept of Financial Institutions (DFI).

As late as 2015, Kratz claimed to be doing business in private practice in Superior, Wisconsin, at Kratz Law Firm (Mal Contends).

A search of Wisconsin DFI records reveal no business entities registered to Kratz during 2015, or after Feb 2012.

This raises the question, why was Kratz claiming to do business as Kratz Law Firm, LLC, when state records reveal that no such business entity existed after February 2012?

Attorney General Josh Kaul 

No matter.

Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) has taken up defending Kratz' bad-faith prosecution.

Under the administration of Attorney General Joshua
Kaul (D), the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DoJ) refused
to address the merits of Steven Avery's characterization
of Wisconsin's post-conviction misconduct
— DoJ bad faith, evidence destruction and suppression
— because the DoJ cannot credibly do so.
In under three months since assuming office, Kaul has presided over both committing and defending acts of evidence concealment and destruction, while misleading Avery's attorneys and state appellate justices (p. 2. March 11, 2019 Supplemental § 974.06 Motion for Post-Conviction Relief Pursuant to State's Violation of Wis. Stat § 968.205 and Youngblood v. Arizona).

Kaul proved anew Wisconsin Democrats are as complicit as Republicans in defending wrongful convictions, deflating hopes the Wisconsin police-prosecutor state is under serious challenge by reformists after the 2018 elections.

Notes Avery's attorney, Kathleen Zellner, in her Feb. 1 legal filing.
The [State] ... conveys an attitude of impunity for its past actions of withholding exculpatory evidence and its current action of continuing the concealment of its destruction of potentially exculpatory or useful evidence. ...

The State wants this Court to overlook the undisputed fact that 2 weeks ago, on December 28, 2018, when it filed its response to Mr. Avery's request for new DNA testing of the bones from the Manitowoc Gravel Pit, it never once admitted or disclosed that it had given the bones back to the Halbach family in 2011 without notice to Mr. Avery or his counsel. (Plaintiff-Respondent's Response in Opposition to the Petition to Stay the Appeal and Remand this Case to the circuit court, December 28, 2018, pp. 1-8). Instead, the State carried on its charade of concealment by claiming that Mr. Avery could voluntarily dismiss his pending appeal (pp. 1,2) (emphasis added).
The Court of Appeals agreed with Zellner.

Reads the Feb. 25 Court ruling in part:
The State’s objection does not address the merits of Avery’s claimed statutory and constitutional violations, and it has not responded to Avery’s supplemental filings alleging the possible destruction of evidentiary items which, it appears, the parties previously agreed to preserve.

The State suggests that the appeal is languishing and that if Avery wishes to pursue new claims outside the scope of the WIS. STAT. § 974.06 post-conviction orders presently on appeal, he could dismiss the pending appeal, or wait until its conclusion to file his new claims. As to the former, Avery understandably disagrees, aware that dismissing this appeal will preclude review of the underlying orders entered to date (emphasis added).
The State previously suggested to the Court in its Dec. 28, 2018 filing that Avery and Zellner drop their appeal without the state ever having "admitted or disclosed that it had given the bones back to the Halbach family in 2011 without notice to Mr. Avery or his counsel," notes Kathleen Zellner her Feb. 1 Reply filing.

The DoJ can be counted on to do its worst in this post-conviction litigation.

Wisconsin v. Steven Avery (2017AP002288)

The DoJ improbably cleared Manitowoc County law enforcement, including District Attorney Denis Vogel, for the first wrongful prosecution of Avery (Amy Lehmann, Deb Strauss, Peg Lautenschlager. DoJ Avery Review. Dec 17 2003).

The DoJ's Division of Criminal Investigation's (DCI) Deb Strauss, co-author the 2003 review that cleared Manitowoc County en masse, was so eager to pin another violent crime on Avery, that when murder victim Teresa Halbach went missing, Strauss contacted Calumet County offering to investigate Avery.

What was Strauss doing?

Now, the DoJ under Attorney General Kaul's administration is engaging in its own misconduct in obstruction (Rolling Stone).

One wonders if Kaul will order a review of the second investigation and prosecution of Avery after the conclusion of Avery's post-conviction litigation.

Further subjects of a DoJ review should include the DoJ's own attorneys and the facts and circumstances of their conduct in the post-conviction litigation.

For Wisconsin law enforcement and adjudication of criminal justice, we are a nation of men and women, laws and ethics are optional.

In opposing post-conviction litigation by concealing evidence against Avery, (Making a Murderer), Wisconsin Attorney Josh Kaul (D) is offering polemics, pointless antagonism and the defense of apparent criminality and willful violation of constitutional rights and state law committed by Wisconsin law enforcement.

Kaul is delaying the inevitable, defending a miscarriage of justice and doing dishonor to Wisconsin.

I have lived in Wisconsin all my life, and I do not see the bottom, though Josh Kaul is dredging the filth of Wisconsin as he blocks, obscures and delays, motivated from a pathology only Kaul can truly explain.

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May 19, 2022

Refusal to Prosecute Anti-Abortion Laws Highlights Whim Powering Legal System

Goya, Saturn Devouring His Son,
painted sometime between 1819-1823.
The image represents America today,
as judicial cult deliberating in secret has
decided women no longer have autonomy
over their bodies. The Supreme Cult seeks
other victims, amid warning, no criticism.
Commentary: Prosecutorial Discretion and Liberty

Madison, Wisconsin — Many citizens read the news that Wisconsin Attorney General Joshua Kaul (D) declared his office will not investigate or prosecute woman for abortion-related 'offenses' with approval.

Kaul made his intentions to refuse enforcement of Wisconsin's 1849 ban on abortion following oral arguments of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in Dec 2021.

The Supreme Court decision on Dobbs will soon eviscerate reproductive liberty as the judiciary jettisons its station as a Court of law.

"Even if courts were to interpret that [1849] law as being enforceable, as attorney general I would not use the resources of the Wisconsin Department of Justice either to investigate alleged violations of that abortion ban or to prosecute alleged violations of it," Kaul said in an interview with the AP.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) claims to be outraged by Kaul and other DAs and attorneys general vowing to refuse to enforce anti-abortion laws.

Republican justices on the nonpartisan Wisconsin Supreme Court will interpret Wisconsin's 1849 ban as enforceable after Republicans on the nonpartisan United States Supreme Court hold women no longer have reproductive liberty.

Kaul was criticized for his abortion-law position by his Republican opponents for attorney general — Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney and State Rep. Adam Jarchow (R- Balsam Lake) in the AP piece.

"I am proudly pro-life and I will defend the police and defend our Wisconsin laws, including our abortion ban, if allowed," said Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney (R).

Adam Jarchow said that Kaul is a failed leader for his stated refusal to enforce criminal law. "[W]hile it’s disappointing that he says he will not follow the law, it’s not surprising," said Jarchow.

Some Wisconsin laws are more worthy of being followed and enforced than others.

Fast-forward five months to May 2022 and Jarchow is excoriating his Republican Primary opponent, Eric Toney, for enforcing Wisconsin's emergency order banning mass gatherings in 2020 (Opoien, The Capital Times). Republicans on the Wisconsin Supreme Court decided the ban was illegal.

But there is no rule of law to be found among prosecutors and judges.

Prosecutorial Discretion

Advocates for the wrongfully convicted continue to blast Attorney General Joshua Kaul for his political decision not to employ prosecutorial discretion in the DOJ's ludicrous crusade to keep those whom the State knows to be innocent in prison in post-conviction litigation, (see Steven Avery Motion to Stay Appeal and Remand, includes new eyewitness affidavit. April 12, 2021; Steven Avery Legal Filings - Updates;  State of Wisconsin v. Steven A. Avery, Appeal Number 2017AP002288 Wisconsin Democrats Block Exoneration Seekers.)

Advocates for the exonerated Black Lives Matter protesters in Madison similarly blasted the Democrat-led Dane County District Attorney’s office for changing its charging standard in two bizarre Black Lives Matter cases to accommodate a racist Democrat State Senator, Tim Carpenter (D-Milwaukee).

Prosecuting charged law-breakers is determined by politics, increasingly so.

And the judiciary is a politically charged branch of government that hides behind black robes and pretension.

The rule of law is the product of the personal whims of officeholders. Refusal to acknowledge this reality gives prosecutors (and judges) political cover.

Liberty and the rule of law are little more than political slogans of two corrupt and destructive politcal parties.

And prosecutors, in the words of Robert Jackson, are potentially the worst threats to a civil society.

"While the prosecutor 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," writes Robert Jackson in The Federal Prosecutor.

As prosecutors lie and posture to the public to no accountability, Jackson's warnings speak loudly today.

It's imperative to refuse to enforce unjust law such as bans on abortion animated by a dishonest judiciary engineering its unpopular, anti-liberty agenda in secret, as the U.S. Supreme Court proceeds.

Gap between government and the people

The fact of the matter is the enormous power of the prosecutor to direct state violence has corrupted entire professions, and the judiciary, as these super cults become focused on destroying liberty.

As the liberty of an entire class of people stands on the brink of elimination by black-robed cultists, we should consider the words of Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45, (University of Chicago Press. ©1955).

"What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap ... between the government and the people."

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand."...

This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter."

The prosecutor, the judiciary and the legal system as a whole have turned into a remote and destructive force that, even as the system's nature and effect become more obvious, cries out in response that the real danger is public criticism and calls for transparency.

We need massive reform on the power of the prosecutor and the judiciary as institutional narcissism working for totalitarian movements now feeds on the public with renewed appetite.

But even casual observers must know in their hearts, reform is not possible. Only massive civil disobedience and general strikes can save liberty today.

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Feb 17, 2019

Wisconsin Law Enforcement Is a Clown Show That Has Veered into the Malice, Pathology of a Crime Family

Wisconsin law enforcement is a menace to humanity.
Update: For more Making a Murderer-related pieces dating back to 2015, see MaM results.
 ---
Madison, Wisconsin — Wisconsin law enforcement was displayed to the world in the Making a Murderer docu-series that shines a light on the malicious prosecutions of Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey.

There's the prosecuting attorney in both cases, ex-Calumet County district attorney Ken Kratz, who can no longer practice law in Wisconsin, and was chased out of office in 2010 after 10 different sexual harassment complaints came to light.

Now, Kratz lives on a public pension and defends himself against allegations of misconduct in his contradictory accounts of the 2005 murder of Teresa Halbach.

Ken Kratz' wife is a Trump-loving political rightwinger, just like Kratz. Leah Kratz publicly mocks and taunts Avery, innocence advocates, including atty Kathleen Zellner, for post-conviction litigation that points out in legal filings the state destroyed and manipulated evidence in plain violation of state law and Avery's Constitutional rights.

Writes Kratz this weekend:
One can garner much about the culture of east-central Wisconsin from this one tweet from an unhinged hick.

But lucky for Ken Kratz and his ilk in the Manitowoc and Calumet County sheriff offices, they have a friend they may not have counted on: Wisconsin's new Attorney General Josh Kaul (D).

Josh Kaul's office through co-counsel Mark Williams and Thomas Fallon is carrying on the crusade against Avery and Dassey with the same lack of ethics and regard for law that defined the tenure of Kaul's three predecessors in the Wisconsin Dept of Justice.
Writes Amelia McDonell-Parry in Rolling Stone this weekend:

Attorney Kathleen Zellner has filed a new letter with the Wisconsin Court of Appeals on behalf of her client, Steven Avery, accusing the Attorney General’s Office of 'trying to deceive' her and the Court about the status of key forensic evidence in the Making a Murderer case. Zellner’s letter, submitted on February 13th, is actually her second letter to the court in as many days; both letters supplement a January 24th motion that accused prosecutors of violating state law and Avery’s constitutional rights by destroying evidence. Zellner tells Rolling Stone that she has since learned that a key piece of evidence — suspected human pelvic bone fragments, which could exonerate her client — may have been destroyed as well. And, she says, prosecutors are 'obstructing' her efforts to find out. ...
On the morning of February 13th, Zellner received a voicemail from attorney Mark Williams, who is co-counsel on the Avery case alongside Fallon and Gahn. The voicemail and transcript were filed along with her February 13th letter, and provided to Rolling Stone and can be heard here. Williams appears to be under the mistaken impression that he’s leaving a message Fallon(.)

This message has done little to dissuade Zellner’s fears that the pelvic bone fragments have been destroyed as well. At the very least, Zellner tells Rolling Stone, the message strongly suggests that prosecutors aren’t certain that the bones are still in evidence.

'This is another first for me,' Zellner tells Rolling Stone. 'Many times I have felt that certain prosecutors were obstructing my efforts, but this is the first time a prosecutor has actually called my phone and left a message confirming that fact. It’s really very thoughtful of them.'

Zellner also believes that by destroying the bones, the State not only violated their own statute, they’ve also denied Avery his constitutional right to due process according to Arizona v. Youngblood. The 1988 Supreme Court decision requires proof that the State acted in 'bad faith' by destroying or losing evidence — it’s a very difficult standard to meet, but Zellner believes this case would qualify. Her January 24th motion asks for the case be remanded back to the Circuit Court so it can address these claims, both of which would all but require the court to overturn Avery’s conviction.

'They’ve been lying all this time about it — and they’ve been lying to the court,' Zellner continues. 'This whole concealment of what happened to the bones is really a way bigger issue than testing them even, because if they’ve been destroyed it’s a violation of their state statute. I don’t know if it’s a felony, but it’s it’s up there. And that’s what the court is grappling with.'

What Attorney General Josh Kaul should have done following developments in the preceding days is draft a letter to the Wisconsin Office of Lawyer Regulation, and chronicle what Kaul has learned the last three months; arrange a conference with the four appellate justices hearing post-conviction litigation; and admit to a pattern of breaches of ethics and state law.

Kaul had better be in consultation with an ethical advisor as well.

Wisconsin news outlets regard law enforcement misconduct as radioactive. And Kaul and law enforcement are arrogant, confident they get away with much misconduct in a lazy state.

But stay tuned. Despots usually think they're untouchable, but they are rarely correct in this assessment.
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Sep 26, 2022

Wisconsin Democrats Silent on New Steven Avery Filing as Midterm Voting Begins

Democrats blocking innocents' freedom will lose votes — some votes

Update: See new legal filing and updates site.
Updated - Madison, Wisconsin — Republicans attacking Democrats in Wisconsin on crime and law enforcement are nearly as fervent as Democrats' asserting police support.

Midterm absentee voting has begun in Wisconsin, and key Wisconsin Democrats are all in, (trying to be), for police, no matter the misconduct they defend, no matter the innocent lives destroyed in wrongful conviction cases.

The August filing by wrongfully convicted Steven Avery details a new witness who contacted the Manitowoc County sheriff office to report he saw the prosecution's star courtroom witness pushing the murder victim's car onto the property of the defendant. The August filing also details that Manitowoc County Sheriff Dept failed to disclose the witness's phone call, a partial copy of which was obtained by Avery' s post-conviction attorneys, another clear Brady violation.

In this state with a horribly corrupt criminal justice system, the question remains whether Wisconsin voters will reward statewide Democratic Party officeholders who continue to block freedom for the innocent Steven Avery and Brendan Dassey, both of whom the state attorney general and governor know were framed by corrupt law enforcement, amid Brady violations, evidence planting, among other misconduct. highlighted to a worldwide audience in the Emmy-winning Making a Murderer docuseries.

Avery and his nephew, Brendan Dassey, were convicted of first-degree homicide in separate trials in 2007 for the murder of a young photographer, Teresa Halbach. Both men are serving life sentences.

The case is State of Wisconsin v Steven Avery, featured in Making a Murderer in a spectacular examination of police and politcal corruption.

Dassey is seeking a pardon from Gov. Tony Evers, pointing out the convictions are unreliable. Evers says falsely he cannot pardon Dassey because his Pardon Advisory Board advises him not to pardon Dassey.

Wisconsin Democratic Party officials, Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Joshua Kaul, have made the political decision to work for this corrupt law enforcement, even the disgraced district attorney Kenneth R. Kratz who prosecuted both the Avery and Dassey cases. Ken Kratz.

This is political liberalism at its most irrational. Tony Evers and Joshua Kaul will not allow crooked Wisconsin police to take a hit, and both Democrats oppose pardons and agreements to vacate the Dassey-Avery wrongful convictions.

One month into his term in 2019, Attorney General Kaul filed legal responses signaling the DOJ would stall Avery's exoneration by filing procedural objections

Life is cheap to Wisconsin Democrats led by Gov. Evers (D) and Attorney General Kaul (D).

No matter the evidence that has piled up since the airing of Making a Murderer shined a light on police and prosecutorial corruption, Wisconsin Democrats remain committed to keeping in prison those whom they know are innocent.

Democrats love their police, no matter how corrupt, for example, Manitowoc County and Calumet County sheriff operations are, as the midterm elections feature Republican ads showering Wisconsin Democrats as weak on crime.

For Wisconsin Democrats, it's defend police no matter how many innocent lives are destroyed.

Tony Evers rejects Brendan Dassey pardon petition

In December 2019, Tony Evers hid behind his Pardon Advisory Board, a stance the governor has continued through spokesmen in the media and administration who falsely say Evers has no choice but to take the advice of his own advisory board.

But the truth about Evers' pardon power came out two years later, last Spring, when Evers announced he would offer immediate clemency to doctors prosecuted for performing abortions under Wisconsin's nineteenth century antiabortion law. Nothing about Evers' Pardon Advisory Board and its criteria.

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 convicted in courts presided over by judges whom we know are corrupt may be granted royal relief — perfectly within the province of his gubernatorial authority.

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 any other political adviser is erroneous.

Attorney General Joshua Kaul

After the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization last Spring, Joshua Kaul repeated he would not use state resources to enforce the Wisconsin anti-abortion law against convictions of women and doctors.

Going forward

Seth Waxman — a member of Brendan Dassey's legal team — said that when reviewing the outrageous interrogation of Dassey by Mark Wiegert, (current Sheriff of the Calumet County Sheriff's Office), and Tom Fassbender (Wisconsin DoJ, DCI investigator (ret)), that his "blood ran cold."

Gov Evers maintains the explicit state Constitutional authority and right to summarily reject the Board's decision and grant Mr. Dassey his immediate freedom with a stroke of a pen for any or no reason, (Rolling Stone).

This action would entail using capacities that to date Evers has not displayed — intellectual honesty, knowledge of Wisconsin law enforcement, and to the worst of Evers' personal defects, a moral backbone and sensibility to the call of social justice.

Joshua Kaul too could refuse today to oppose Steven Avery's new filing calling for a new trial. A witness, Thomas Sowinski, has come forward and swears in a statement that he saw the prosecution's key trial witness plant the murder victim's RAV4 vehicle on the property of the man, Avery, convicted of homicide in 2007.

In other words, a credible resident swears he caught conspirators red-handed in a frame-up scheme in Wisconsin's infamous murder case drawing headlines in state post-conviction litigation.

Further, Zellner brings another Brady violation to the Court's attention, showing a phone "call to dispatch from a witness claiming to see the vehicle leave the property was not provided to previous counsel. Zellner says her office [recently] received the 'previously suppressed' call that was placed on Nov. 6, 2005. The recording had never been disclosed to the trial defense," reports WBAY-Green Bay, citing another spectacular legal filing on August 16.

A worldwide community remains appalled with Wisconsin "justice." Will Wisconsin voters? November will tell.

Corrupt police worked and worked until planting evidence and character assassination gave a ridiculous local press enough for the get-Avery project in the public mind in east-central Wisconsin. Corrupt Wisconsin courts okayed everything that the prosecution and police did.



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Sep 22, 2020

Wisconsin Attorney General Picks Cop Defender, 'Company Man,' to Review Probe of Killer Kenosha Cop

Update: Madison Police Chief Noble Wray's cops were vicious punks who knew that Wray always had their backs for whatever they did to the public. See Madison Bartender: 'The police almost killed this guy.'

Madison, Wisconsin — Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) signals he'll cover up Kenosha police misconduct in his announcement that he  chose a retired police chief to review the Dept of Justice investigation of Kenosha cop Rusten Sheskey's shooting Jacob S. Blake seven times in the back.

Kaul said he chose retired Madison Police Chief Noble Wray to review the DoJ mandated probe at the request of Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley (D), (Wisconsin Dept of Justice).

Using Wray as a consultant puts a black face on the expected coming no-charge decision. The appointment of Wray follows weeks of the DoJ releasing shaded facts and half truths to justify a no-charge decision against the racist cop Sheskey.

Wray's Troubled Tenure

Wray served as police chief from 2004-13, overseeing the Madison Police militarization, including the notorious new normal killing-first policy that drove Mayor Paul Soglin to defeat in 2018.

Noble Wray's tenure includes his steadfast defense of the infamous 2012 police killing of Paul Heenan.

Wray specifically defended the racist cop Stephen Heimsness' killing of the innocent Heenan.

Writes Madison human rights activist, Amelia Royko Maurer:

Kenosha D.A. Gravely and AG Josh Kaul have chosen former Madison Police Chief Noble Wray to review the Jacob Blake investigative file. They’re doing this because they believe that Wray’s identity alone will pacify those within the Black communities of Wisconsin who have been protesting Blake’s murder. They are doing this so they can say “how can the exoneration of Blake’s murderer be racist if it was done by a Black man?”

While a nice man, Chief Wray is the least objective and impartial person they could have found for this review. He is a “company man” through and through. Let’s briefly review who Chief Wray is and some of what he did here in Madison.

Chief Wray clearly wishes to make a name for himself as a police oversight expert and so it makes sense that over the past year, Wray lobbied against the Civilian Oversight Board (that won’t employ former MPD officers) claiming it wasn't necessary since we have the Police and Fire Commission knowing full well the two are completely different entities with different functions and under different jurisdiction.

Chief Wray also tried to convince the Madison Common Council that the Internal Monitor (that can’t be a former MPD officer) was unnecessary and would cause friction between the chief and the mayor.  As two separate chiefs and one expert in civilian oversight put it “if the chief has nothing to hide, the have nothing to fear.”.  But Chief Wray had a lot to hide so it makes complete sense for him to have advocated against civilian oversight and objectively impartial oversight period.

Chief Wray was Madison’s police chief in 2012, when Paulie Heenan was murdered by then Officer Steve Heimsness. Wray, being anything but objective, exonerated Heimsness in the media a couple days after Paulie was murdered and a full month before the criminal investigation was complete. Half of the Madison Police Department thought Heimsness was going to jail but Wray told me 8 times (because I asked him 8 times) that he trusted our lives in Heimsness’ hands.  He refused to allow an external review of the criminal investigation. He found Heimsness to be honorable, honest and good. He said this knowing that Heimsness had been accused of hazing a female officer and lying about it - a case he was forced (by that same female officer, Sarah Mackasey) to reopen after exonerating Heimsness. Only then did he find 118 reasons to fire Heimsness including but murdering an unarmed man wasn’t one of them.
The list of Heimsness’s offenses include stealing, hazing, saying racist things, harassment, making statements about murdering people and hours before he murdered Paulie he wrote that he was "the right cop for the wrong job, no witnesses, no problem.”  Much of what  he got in trouble for was written on the police messaging system. His behavior and Wray’s negligence in oversight led to the destruction of an officer's job.

The Madison chief prior to Wray had a policy for reviewing the police messaging data system but Wray had discontinued it. He didn’t seem to oversee or manage much actually and any progressive steps towards shifting power away from punitive responses to restorative ones were ones that he was forced into.

Sometime in 2013, retired Captain of Training and Personnel Chief Maples called Wray out for failing to promote any BIPOC or women in general to meaningful positions. He had flanked himself with conservative white men and did little to make the department safe for anyone else. 

This all being said, we have a presidential election coming up, racism is a hot topic for the candidates and this is currently the most high profile case in the country. Also, Blake survived. Wray doesn’t take risks where the gain isn’t obvious to him and it is much safer for Law Enforcement, the AG, the DA to find an officer in the wrong if the victim is still alive and in this case, hiring Wray takes the pressure off of the DA and Kenosha’s Chief. Wray might have more to gain in finding the officer at fault but whatever decision he does make will be about what he has to gain from it and not justice, at all.

Other cops who worked in Wray's regime — Justin Bailey, Gary Pihlaja and Matt Kenny — later gunned down Ashley DiPiazza in 2014, and Tony Robinson in 2015.

Wray never issued a public statement objecting to any Madison police killings.

Noble Wray is putting on a show now; he will give his imprimatur to another sordid story of Wisconsin law enforcement.

The Wisconsin Dept of Justice Sept 21, 2020 press release is reproduced below:

UPDATE: Kenosha Officer-Involved Shooting
Sep 21 2020

KENOSHA, Wis. Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul and Kenosha County District Attorney Michael Graveley today provided an update regarding the investigation of the officer-involved shooting (OIS) of Jacob Blake.

At DA Graveley’s request, AG Kaul has identified a consultant to review the investigative file and provide the district attorney with an analysis of the incident. DA Graveley and AG Kaul agree that having such an analysis prepared for the district attorney’s consideration will serve the interests of justice in this case. The consultant identified by AG Kaul, who is being retained by DA Graveley, is Wisconsin native and retired Madison, Wis. Police Chief Noble Wray.

The shooting of Mr. Blake has been vigorously and thoroughly investigated. At this time, the Wisconsin Department of Justice (DOJ) Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) is in the final stages of its investigation, and it will soon provide the investigative file to Chief Wray. While investigative files from DCI’s investigations of OIS cases contain reports regarding the relevant facts, they do not contain charging recommendations.

The next phase in this case will be Chief Wray’s review of the file and preparation of his analysis. Chief Wray’s analysis will assist the district attorney in his review of the facts and their relationship with standard law enforcement practices as he makes a charging decision.

“At the request of DA Graveley, I have identified an independent expert who can help ensure a just outcome in this case,” said Attorney General Kaul. “Noble Wray is a longtime Wisconsin resident and a widely respected retired Madison Police Chief who has extensive experience in law enforcement, including experience at the national level as a police reform specialist for the U.S. Department of Justice.”

When DCI is the lead investigating agency of a shooting involving a law enforcement officer, DCI aims to provide its reports of the incident to the prosecutor within 30 days. In this case, the prosecutor has directed that those reports be forwarded to a consultant for review and analysis. Following review and analysis by the consultant, the prosecutor will confer with the consultant, review the reports of the investigation, and then make an independent determination about what charges, if any, are appropriate. If the prosecutor determines there is no basis for prosecution of the law enforcement officer, and no other circumstances prevent the release, DCI will thereafter make the reports available to the public.

DOJ has previously provided the following information:

On the evening of Sunday, August 23, 2020, Kenosha Police Department officers were dispatched to a residence in the 2800 block of 40th Street after a female caller reported that her boyfriend was present and was not supposed to be on the premises.

During the incident, officers attempted to arrest Jacob S. Blake, age 29. After the initial attempt to arrest Mr. Blake, Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey deployed a taser to attempt to stop Mr. Blake. When that attempt failed, Kenosha Police Officer Vincent Arenas also deployed his taser, however that taser was also not successful in stopping Mr. Blake.

Mr. Blake walked around his vehicle, opened the driver’s side door, and leaned forward. While holding onto Mr. Blake’s shirt, Officer Rusten Sheskey fired his service weapon 7 times. Officer Sheskey fired the weapon towards Mr. Blake’s back. No other officer fired their weapon. Kenosha Police Department does not have body cameras, therefore the officers were not wearing body cameras.

The shooting officer, Kenosha Police Officer Rusten Sheskey, has been a law enforcement officer with Kenosha Police Department for seven years. Kenosha Police Officer Vincent Arenas has served with Kenosha Police Department since February 2019, with prior service with the United States Capitol Police Department. Also present was Kenosha Police Officer Brittany Meronek who joined Kenosha Police Department in January of this year.

During the investigation following the initial incident, Mr. Blake admitted that he had a knife in his possession. DCI agents recovered a knife from the driver’s side floorboard of Mr. Blake’s vehicle. A search of the vehicle located no additional weapons.

Law enforcement immediately provided medical aid to Mr. Blake. Flight for Life transported Mr. Blake to Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee.

DCI is leading this investigation and is assisted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Wisconsin State Patrol and Kenosha County Sheriff’s Office. All involved law enforcement are fully cooperating with DCI during this investigation. The involved officers have been placed on administrative leave.

DCI, along with the FBI, have completed the following as part of the investigation:

    Conducted 88 witness interviews,
    Collected 102 evidence items,
    Downloaded 28 videos for review,
    Issued 4 search warrants, and,
    Dedicated over 600 hours working on this case as of Saturday, August 29, 2020.

DCI is continuing to review evidence and determine the facts of this incident and will turn over investigative reports to a prosecutor following a complete and thorough investigation.

No additional details are currently available.

Please direct all media inquiries regarding this incident to DOJ.

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