Wisconsin Justice Initiative

In this blog post we shrink the Wisconsin Supreme Court's decision permitting the attorney general to control settlement funds to a more manageable size.

The SCOW docket: Attorney general controls settlement funds Note: We are crunching Supreme Court of Wisconsin decisions down to size. The rule for this is that no justice gets more than 10 paragraphs as written in the actual decision. The “upshot” and...

Interested in the Wisconsin Court of Appeals' decision upholding 2011 Wis Act 10? Here's our summary of the court's opinion.

District 2 Court of Appeals upholds Act 10 ​ By Erik Reinthaler, WJI Intern A divided Wisconsin Court of Appeals late last month reversed a Dane County judge's ruling that declared major portions of Act 10 unconstitutional. Act 10,...

Learn more about recently appointed Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Tanner Kilander.

www.wjiinc.org

In this excellent piece, WJI's summer intern, Erik Reinthaler, discusses what he observed while watching proceedings in several Wisconsin municipal courts.

www.wjiinc.org

WJI's attempt to verify what the Iron County judge and prosecutor said at a hearing uncovered a big public records problem: the court's blocking of nonparties purchasing transcripts or digital audio recordings as required by state law and court policy. Since this story issued on WJI's blog and newsletter, we've had several attorneys and nonprofit folks reach out with concern and support of WJI's position.

Victim's story leads to Iron County Circuit Court stonewall on public records By Alexandria Staubach and Margo Kirchner For privacy protection we will refer to a sexual assault victim as Jane Doe. This story briefly recounts a sexual assault. Iron County Circuit Court...

Wisconsin's prison population just hit an unfortunate record—the highest prison population, breaking the record set in 2019. So we've not only gotten back to pre-pandemic levels but increased beyond them. WPR's story on the record includes quotes from WJI's policy analyst, Alexandria Staubach.

Wisconsin's prison population hits a record high There's a record number of people currently serving time in Wisconsin prisons, according to the latest state data.

Better justice-system policies are often based on who sits in the legislature and who is governor. Are there better electoral systems than Wisconsin's plurality rule, by which a candidate can win an election with less than 50% of the vote? Here's our summary of another option: rank choice voting.

Other electoral systems: rank choice voting WJI advocates for progressive change in Wisconsin’s justice system. Some of those changes can only come from legislation and who is positioned to make law. Being so, we are also committed to...

Report shows that Milwaukee police pursuits are getting more dangerous, with crashes and fatalities up in 2025 compared to 2024.

The numbers don’t lie—police pursuits are getting more dangerous By Alexandria Staubach The Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission’s recent report on 2025 Milwaukee police vehicle pursuits confirms that chases, crashes, and fatalities all increased from 2024...

How long is too long for a criminal case to be delayed when counsel is not appointed for a defendant? And what is the remedy? A case in the Wisconsin Court of Appeals raises those questions for a man held 468 days before he got a "preliminary" hearing. https://www.wjiinc.org/blog/slow-justice

Gov. Tony Evers appointed Diane Meulemans to Waupaca County Circuit Court earlier this year. Read about her in this "Evers' judges" post with quotations from her judicial application. https://www.wjiinc.org/blog/evers-judges-diane-l-meulemans