At issue is a six-year-old state law which gives the Legislature's Joint Committee on Finance the final say about whether to approval settlements in civil lawsuits prosecuted by state's attorney general.
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The heads of the Universities of Wisconsin system and the state Department of Corrections faced critical questions from Republican state lawmakers Tuesday over requests for new state funding.
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Susan Crawford’s win in Tuesday’s record-smashing Wisconsin Supreme Court election paves the way for the court’s liberal majority to continue to flex its influence over state politics.
The Dane County Circuit Court judge’s victory guarantees that liberals will control the court until at least 2028.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is at the center of state politics. It has been since 2020, when it denied Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election, and has continued to make headlines — especially since flipping to liberal control in August 2023.
For the past two years, Justices Rebecca Dallet, Jill Karofsky, Janet Protasiewicz and Ann Walsh Bradley — who collectively make up the court’s liberal majority — have flexed their authority and remade Wisconsin’s political landscape. Crawford, who will be sworn in on Aug. 1, will replace the retiring Walsh Bradley, who has served on the high court for 30 years.
Here’s what Crawford’s victory could mean for some key issues.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court seems poised to, in some form or the other, strike down the state’s 1849 abortion law — which bans almost all abortions in the state.
The court’s current justices in November 2024 heard oral arguments in the lawsuit challenging the statute. It was filed by Attorney General Josh Kaul in the days after Roe vs. Wade was overturned. The lawsuit asks the court to determine whether the 1849 law applies to consensual abortions. It also asks whether the 1849 ban was “impliedly repealed” when the Legislature passed additional laws — while Roe was in effect — regulating abortion after fetal viability.
A Dane County judge ruled in late 2023 that the 1849 statute applied to feticide, not consensual abortions. Abortion services, which were halted in the state after Roe was overturned, have since resumed.
Crawford’s opponent, conservative Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Brad Schimel, argued during the campaign that the liberal majority was delaying its ruling in the case “to keep the 1849 law a live issue” in the race.
While working in private practice, Crawford represented Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin in litigation related to abortion access.
Crawford’s victory on Tuesday ensures the court’s upcoming ruling is likely to remain intact — at least for now — meaning abortion will remain legal in Wisconsin.
The liberal majority’s decision to throw out the state’s Republican-gerrymandered legislative maps, breaking a GOP lock on the state Legislature, has been its most influential ruling since taking power. As a result, Democrats picked up 14 seats in the Assembly and state Senate in 2024 in a good Republican year nationwide.
However, during the same time period, the high court denied a request to reconsider the state’s congressional maps without stating a reason. The maps were drawn by Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, but under a “least change” directive from a previous conservative court, so they remained GOP-friendly. But in the liberal court’s legislative redistricting decision, it overturned the “least change” precedent. Crawford’s victory opens a window for Democrats and their allies to once again challenge the maps, potentially using the argument that the current lines were drawn under rules that have since been rejected.
The future of the congressional districts were a key issue in this year’s state Supreme Court race.
Elon Musk, who spent some $20 million to boost Schimel’s candidacy, said at a rally in Green Bay last weekend that a potential redrawing of the maps is what made the race so important.
He called Tuesday’s election “a vote for which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives.”
Democrats have pushed a similar idea.
The Democratic leader in the U.S. House, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, last week called Wisconsin’s congressional lines “broken.”
“As soon as possible we need to be able to revisit that and have fairer lines,” he said during an event with DNC Chair Ken Martin. “The only way for that to be even a significant possibility is if you have an enlightened Supreme Court.”
Crawford’s win makes the court friendlier to a potential congressional redistricting lawsuit.
A Dane County judge ruled late last year that provisions of Act 10, a Scott Walker-era law that kneecapped public sector labor unions, violated the state constitution. Under the ruling, all public sector workers would have their collective bargaining restored to what it was before the law took effect in 2011.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court in February declined to fast-track an appeal in the case, meaning it must first be decided by a conservative branch of the state Court of Appeals, likely ensuring it won’t come before the high court before the end of the current term.
That means Crawford, who challenged aspects of Act 10 while working as a private attorney, will be on the court when it comes before the justices.
She didn’t answer directly when asked during the race’s only debate if she would recuse herself from the case. But she did note that the provision currently being challenged is different from the one she brought a lawsuit over.
“If the same provision that I was involved in litigating back in those early days was challenged again, I most likely would recuse,” she said.
But with conservative-leaning Justice Brian Hagedorn having already recused from the case, Crawford could step aside and liberals would still have the votes needed to overturn the law.
The high court is currently also considering a case about enforcement of the state’s “Spills Law.”
Enacted in 1978, the law requires people or companies discharging a hazardous substance “to restore the environment to the extent practicable and minimize the harmful effects from the discharge to the air, lands or waters of this state.”
The lawsuit was filed by Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state’s powerful business lobby, in 2021. It argued that the DNR could not require people to test for so-called “forever chemicals” contamination — and require remediation if they’re present — because the agency hadn’t gone through the formal process of designating the chemicals, known as PFAS, as “hazardous substances.” The court’s liberal justices seemed skeptical of WMC’s position during oral arguments in January.
WMC has been a perennial spender in state Supreme Court races. It spent some $2 million targeting Crawford during this year’s race.
Any forthcoming ruling in favor of the DNR is likely safe with Crawford on the court. She was endorsed during the campaign by Wisconsin Conservation Voters.
Here’s what Susan Crawford’s state Supreme Court win means for Wisconsin is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.
The boy previously seemed to be improving, and UW health officials announced in mid-January that he had been upgraded to good condition. Since then, things have taken a turn for the worse.
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Members of SEIU and Voces de la Frontera arrive at the Capitol Tuesday | Wisconsin Examiner photo
Online rumors warning of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) patrols around polling places in Milwaukee and Madison appear to be unfounded. The reports circulated on social media claiming that there would be “more than 5,000 ICE agents patrolling the areas” in the two cities, as voters went to the polls to cast ballots in the April 1 election for candidates running for Wisconsin Supreme Court, state superintendent, and referendum questions focusing on voter ID.
Anxieties about ICE activities have been heightened under the Trump Administration. Recent weeks have seen videos showing plain-clothes, masked ICE agents detaining people on the street. Some of the detainees had been arrested after participating in activist activities, such as protests calling for an end to the war in Gaza. Fears of ICE raids have increased in Milwaukee and Madison, as in other cities.
Spokespersons for Milwaukee and Madison city government told Wisconsin Examiner that they have not heard any reports, complaints, or notifications about ICE agents at polling places. A spokesperson for the ICE office in Milwaukee said, “due to our operational tempo and the increased interest in our agency, we are not able to research and respond to rumors or specifics of routine daily operations for ICE.”
Meanwhile, turnout in Milwaukee has been so high that local news outlets are reporting that polling sites across the city have run out of ballots. The city’s Election’s Commission is arranging for fresh ballots to be sent to polling stations. In Tuesday’s election Republican-backed Supreme Court candidate and former Wisconsin attorney general Brad Schimel is facing off against Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, who has the backing of state Democrats. In the state superintendent’s race, incumbent Jill Underly is facing challenger Brittany y Kinser. Wisconsinites will also get to decide whether the state’s constitution should be amended to codify a voter ID requirement.
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Melissa Beson photo courtesy LDF Police Department
On Tuesday, April 1, the Lac du Flambeau (LDF) Tribal Police Department said in a press release that it is continuing a search for Melissa Beson, 37, who has been missing since March 17 from the Lac du Flambeau Reservation in Vilas County.
Chief of Police T.J. Bill said there had been ground, air and water searches using drones and dogs, and images from over 300 reservation surveillance cameras have been reviewed for clues.
Beson, a member of the Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, was last seen in the vicinity of Indian Village Road and Chequamegon Forest Trail in Lac du Flambeau.
She was last seen wearing red sweatpants, a black sleeveless shirt, and a gray sweatshirt.
Beson is a Native American female, 5’7”, with a medium build, brown hair and brown eyes. She has numerous tattoos, including on her neck, arms and leg.
Beson’s family reported her missing on March 23, six days after she was last seen.
“Finding her has been the number one priority of the LDF Police Department,” Bill in a statement. “We have conducted extensive ground searches on foot, even in severe weather conditions. Our officers have even come in on their days off to search for her. The dedicated members of Newbold Search and Rescue have once again come to our aid and have assisted us by searching with their specially trained canines.The dogs have shown interest and appeared to pick up Melissa’s scent in the area of her last known sighting.”
The LDF Police Department has used two high-quality drones to search a portion of the Bear River’s open water and plans to use an underwater drone to dive under ice.
“Although we are expending monumental efforts in searching the area in which Mellisa was last seen, we are in no way ignoring the possibility that she may be elsewhere,” said Bill. “Our officers are working non-stop, during every shift, to follow up on every lead and tip that we receive. We have combed through countless hours of surveillance footage, have interviewed dozens of people, and have reached out to law enforcement agencies in various areas of the State of Wisconsin, who have assisted us by contacting persons with possible information and even conducting searches of residences in their jurisdictions.”
Bill told the Examiner that the LDF Police Department has reviewed surveillance footage from over 300 cameras monitored around the reservation.
“So nothing’s been revealed on them, on the surveillance of the cameras, where she was last seen,” he said. Where Beson was last seen is “in more of a desolate area,” he added, “so we don’t have cameras that go out that far.”
He also noted that the ground searches using dogs had been hampered by recent weather, including snow.
“We would like to extend our sincere appreciation to LDF Emergency Management, LDF Tribal Roads Department, LDF Economic Support Department, Newbold Search and Rescue, the Vilas County Sheriff’s Department, and Vilas County Dispatch for their vital assistance to our investigative and search efforts,” he said.
He added, “We would also like to thank everyone in the community who has provided assistance to our Department and been supportive to Melisa’s family during this difficult time.”
Anyone with information is encouraged to call the Lac du Flambeau Tribal Police Department. at (715) 588-7717 or the Vilas County Sheriff’s Office at (715) 479-4441.
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Prisoners look out of their cell as Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem tours the Terrorist Confinement Center or CECOT, on March 26, 2025, in Tecoluca, El Salvador. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The White House Tuesday defended the deportation of a national from El Salvador to a notorious mega-prison in that country, despite Trump administration officials admitting in court filings that the removal was a mistake.
Kilmar Armando Abrego Garcia of Beltsville, Maryland, was ordered in 2019 to be removed from the United States by an immigration judge, but was granted protection from removal because it was more “likely than not that he would be persecuted by gangs in El Salvador” if he were returned, according to court documents.
Yet on March 15 he was placed on one of three deportation flights to El Salvador. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Justice admitted in separate court filings that his deportation to the brutal prison, Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo, or CECOT, was an “administrative error.”
“This was an oversight, and the removal was carried out in good faith based on the existence of a final order of removal and Abrego-Garcia’s purported membership in MS-13,” ICE Acting Field Office Director of Enforcement and Removal Operations Robert L. Cerna wrote in a Monday court filing.
Simon Y. Sandoval-Moshenberg, the attorney for Abrego Garcia, is requesting a preliminary injunction from the U.S. District Court of Maryland, which would require the Trump administration to make a request to the government of El Salvador for Abrego Garcia to be returned to U.S. custody.
The lawyer also wants a halt to U.S. payments to the government of El Salvador for detaining his client at the “notorious CECOT torture prison.”
A hearing is set for 1 p.m. Eastern Friday before U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis. She was appointed by former President Barack Obama in 2016.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt Tuesday said that Abrego Garcia was a leader of the MS-13 gang, despite his deportation being “a clerical error.”
“The administration maintains the position that this individual who was deported to El Salvador and will not be returning to our country was a member of the brutal and vicious MS-13 gang,” she said.
She said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has evidence of his gang activity that she has seen and she also alleged that Abrego Garcia was involved in human trafficking.
Sandoval-Moshenberg, the attorney for Abrego Garcia, has denied his involvement in any gangs, noting he has no criminal charges or convictions in the United States, El Salvador or any other country.
“Abrego Garcia is not a member of or has no affiliation with Tren de Aragua, MS-13, or any other criminal or street gang. Although he has been accused of general ‘gang affiliation,’ the U.S. government has never produced an iota of evidence to support this unfounded accusation,” according to court filings.
Leavitt also dismissed the 2019 order from an immigration judge granting Abrego Garcia protections from removal.
Federal law bars the removal of an individual if they will face persecution, known as a “withholding of removal.” Because of this condition, Abrego Garcia was required to check in with ICE each year, which he has complied with since 2019, according to court filings.
“Who does that judge work for? It was an immigration judge who works for the Department of Justice at the direction of the attorney general of the United States, whose name is Pam Bondi, who has committed to eradicating MS-13 from our nation’s interior,” Leavitt said.
Leavitt said that 17 more men were deported to CECOT Monday. The U.S. is paying El Salvador’s government $6 million to detain all those deported there.
Abrego Garcia, who is married to a U.S. citizen with whom he has a child, was detained by ICE on March 12 while driving with his 5-year-old son near Baltimore, Maryland. He was informed by ICE officials that his “status had changed,” according to court filings.
Abrego Garcia’s wife, Jennifer Vasquez Sura, “was called and instructed to appear at their location within ten minutes to get her five-year old son, A.A.V.; otherwise, the ICE officers threatened that the child would be handed over to Child Protective Services.”
Vasquez Sura tried to call the ICE facility that her husband was transferred to and inform officials that he could not be sent back to El Salvador.
“Her attempts to protest by saying that he had won protection from being removed to El Salvador fell on deaf ears,” according to court filings.
Within three days, he would become one of the 261 men on one of three deportation flights to CECOT in El Salvador, despite a temporary restraining order in place from a district court judge from the District of Columbia that applied generally to all the deportations.
Vasquez Sura was able to identify him from a news article when a photo showed men sent to the prison with their heads shaved and arms over their necks. She recognized her husband’s scar on his head and his tattoo.
Department of Justice attorneys, on behalf of the Trump administration, argued that the district court in Maryland lacks jurisdiction because Abrego Garcia is no longer in U.S. custody and his lawyers have not shown it is likely he could be returned.
“There is no showing that any payment made to El Salvador is yet to occur; no showing that El Salvador is likely to release CECOT detainees but for any such payment; no showing that El Salvador is even inclined to consider a request to release a detainee at the United States’ request,” according to the DOJ filing.
The Department of Justice also argues that his attorney has “not clearly shown a likelihood that Abrego Garcia will be tortured or killed in CECOT.”
“While there may be allegations of abuses in other Salvadoran prisons—very few in relation to the large number of detainees—there is no clear showing that Abrego Garcia himself is likely to be tortured or killed in CECOT,” according to DOJ.
The Department of Justice said the district court should defer to the Trump administration’s determination “that Abrego Garcia will not likely be tortured or killed in El Salvador.”
“Although the government erred in removing Abrego Garcia specifically to El Salvador, the government would not have removed any alien to El Salvador for detention in CECOT if it believed that doing so would violate the United States’ obligations under the Convention (Against Torture),” according to DOJ.
Micah Laureano with his mother, Phyllis, who filed a lawsuit after Micah's death | Photo courtesy Phyllis Laureno
Jackson Vogel allegedly told a corrections officer that he killed his cellmate, Micah Laureano, because Laureano was Black and gay. A case report the Examiner received from the Brown County Sheriff’s Office shows Vogel had a history of racist and threatening behavior.
After Laureano died in late August at Green Bay Correctional Institution (GBCI), Vogel was charged with homicide with hate crime and repeat offender penalties, the Examiner reported.
Micah Laureano’s mother, Phyllis Laureano, has sued Secretary Jared Hoy and GBCI warden Christopher Stevens of the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. The federal civil rights lawsuit alleges “defendants’ willful and deliberate indifference to Mr. Laureano’s safety” resulted in the murder.
The sheriff’s office said the suspect and victim had occupied the same cell for only hours before the incident. The statement said the medical examiner’s findings confirmed Laureano died of strangulation/suffocation by manner of homicide.
Beth Hardtke, communications director for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections, said both individuals involved in the incident were in temporary lockup status.
Before Laureano’s death, Vogel, 25, had been found guilty of attempted first-degree intentional homicide, the Examiner reported in late August. Laureano, 19, had been found guilty of taking and driving a vehicle without consent and as party to a crime for substantial battery intending bodily harm, robbery with use of force and first-degree recklessly endangering safety.
A narrative in a Brown County Sheriff’s Office case report described information from a few conduct reports Vogel received. The Examiner received the report last year through an open records request.
Sergeant Justin Raska reviewed conduct reports for Laureano and Vogel, according to the case report. He found nothing relevant in Laureano’s reports but wrote about three of Vogel’s infractions.
The first report Raska described was dated March 5, 2024, and was completed by a staff member at the Racine Youthful Offender Correctional Facility (RYOCF). The staff had received inmate complaint forms filed by Vogel that “contained obscene, profane, abusive and threatening language,” some of which was written in German, according to the description of the incident.
The complaints included swastika symbols. According to the report, Vogel’s writing included the words “you all need and deserve Death!” and “White Power (WLM).” He voiced support for Adolf Hitler and the Aryan Brotherhood, a white supremacist gang.
A second conduct report was dated March 6, 2024, according to Raska. A lieutenant received interview request forms from Vogel, which were written to several staff members at RYOCF and made “numerous disrespectful racial remarks.”
The request forms included “several inappropriate remarks and symbols,” such as SS Bolts and “das Endlosung.” This referenced Hitler’s “Final Solution” of mass murder of Jewish people, according to the report.
The third conduct report described by Raska was completed by a sergeant at GBCI and dated August 27, 2024, the day of Laureano’s death.
Incarcerated people were removed from a cell so that maintenance could fix a clogged sink, according to the report. Unit staff discovered the wooden bulletin board was broken, and the sergeant heard from unit staff that Vogel admitted to breaking the board because he was bored.
The bulletin board had jagged edges and it was unsafe to house incarcerated people in the cell, according to the report. This might have led to Vogel being housed in a different cell, with Laureano.
Laureano and Vogel’s cell was in a “segregated Treatment Center area,” according to a narrative in the case report by Raska.
Raska said he was told “the Treatment Center block” serves as a “step unit” to bridge the gap between restricted housing and general population housing. Restricted housing includes disciplinary separation — which occurs when an incarcerated person commits a violation.
Raska said the treatment center serves as an alternative to single cell segregation in the restricted housing unit. He said incarcerated people could be housed in the treatment center due to clinical observation or because of a pending investigation.
Laureano’s lawsuit contains three Eighth Amendment counts. It alleges deliberate indifference to Laureano’s safety, failure to protect Laureano and failure to train subordinates. The lawsuit does not mention Vogel’s conduct reports or the racist statements mentioned in them.
The lawsuit alleges that the defendants didn’t consider and/or willfully ignored Vogel’s “substantial history of violent assault, mental health issues, and multi-decade length of sentence when assessing his compatibility with Mr. Laureano,” who was serving a lesser sentence of three years.
It also alleges that defendants failed to “adequately train, monitor and supervise GBCI staff” to make sure administrative requirements and protocols were being followed during housing decisions.
Phyllis Laureano is represented by attorney Lonnie Story, who said he has spoken to incarcerated people who might be deposed prior to a trial.
“It was very apparent to the inmates, as well as what — from what they communicate to me about staff, it would be kind of hard to deny by anyone… to say there was no knowledge of Mr. Vogel being a racist, and expressing other very negative opinions and ideas outside of just the race factor,” Story said, adding that this applied to sexual orientation.
On Sept. 10, the Examiner made an open records request to the DOC, requesting reports regarding incidents involving Vogel and/or Laureano. The request’s status is “in progress” in the DOC’s open records request portal.
Beth Hardtke, the communications director for the DOC, said it’s the DOC’s practice not to comment on cases where there is ongoing litigation.
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The Wauwatosa Police Department (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
Since 2022, the Wauwatosa Police Department (WPD) has operated under new, very specific guidelines on how intelligence is collected and shared. Developing a policy involved reflection, clarification and modernization for the police department. Prior to its creation, a spokesperson wrote in an emailed statement to Wisconsin Examiner, no formal intelligence gathering policy existed at Tosa PD.
By establishing clear standards, WPD aims to “bring about an equitable balance between the civil rights and liberties of citizens and the needs of law enforcement to collect and disseminate Criminal Intelligence on the conduct of persons and groups who may be planning, engaged in, or about to be engaged in criminal activity,” the policy states. Versions of the policy, as well as emails detailing its creation, were obtained by Wisconsin Examiner through open records requests.
The eight-page policy defines the difference between “information” and “criminal intelligence,” outlines appropriate channels for sharing that information, and establishes clear boundaries protecting individuals and groups. “Information” is defined as “raw unprocessed data that is unverified and unevaluated,” and only becomes “intelligence” once it’s been “systematically planned, collected, analyzed, and disseminated in an effort to anticipate, prevent, or monitor potential criminal activity for public safety purposes,” according to the policy.
It stresses that such efforts must meet the threshold of “reasonable suspicion,” where a sworn law enforcement officer or investigator believes there is a “reasonable possibility” that a person or group is involved in “a definable criminal activity or enterprise.” Individuals or groups which become the focus of WPD’s intel-gathering activities must be those suspected of being involved in the planning, financing or organization of criminal acts, those suspected of being involved in criminal acts with “known or suspected crime figures,” or be the victims of those acts.
The policy highlights that intelligence may not be gathered on individuals or groups based solely on:
Any information gathered from confidential sources or electronic surveillance devices “shall be performed in a legally acceptable manner and in accordance with procedures,” the policy states. The policy also requires periodic review of intelligence by appropriate WPD staff to ensure the information is accurate, current, and remains relevant to the department’s goals. If it’s not, the policy states, the information should be purged.
The intelligence policy was created with input from several key personnel within WPD including Lt. Joseph Roy, crime analyst Dominick Ratkowski, and Capt. Shane Wrucke. WPD Chief James MacGillis — who was formerly a Milwaukee PD drug intelligence and High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) officer — also had input in crafting the policy.
A WPD spokesperson wrote in an email statement that the city’s Police and Fire Commission, which oversees appointments, promotions and discipline of police and fire personnel, was not involved in establishing the policy. In April 2024, Ratkowski shared a final draft of the policy with Robert Bechtold, from the Madison Police Department. “Thanks for the SOP [Standard Operating Procedure],” emailed Bechtold, who was apparently looking for guidance on how to create such a policy. “I’m not looking forward to us building one,” he added. The Madison Police Department didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Roy, Ratkowski, and Wrucke all have ties to WPD’s investigative division. Roy supervised the division’s dayshift and also serves as commander of the Milwaukee Area Investigative Team (MAIT), which focuses on officer-involved shootings and deaths. Ratkowski has worked at WPD since 2018, and was hired as the department’s first ever civilian crime analyst. Wrucke, like Roy, has past ties to both MAIT and WPD’s Special Operations Group (SOG), which focuses on covert surveillance, accessing phones, and drug investigations.
A WPD spokesperson explained in an email statement that the intel policy was created “to incorporate lessons learned, enhance transparency, and provide clear guidelines for intelligence gathering.” Those lessons likely stemmed from the protests of 2020, and the decisions made by investigators when WPD was still headed by former Chief Barry Weber.
Following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officers, marches against police abuse began in Milwaukee and Wauwatosa, where a former police officer had killed three people over a five-year period. Wauwatosa experienced months of daily non-violent protests which occasionally ended in standoffs with officers. In October 2020, Wauwatosa declared a curfew after the district attorney’s office announced that officer Joseph Mensah wouldn’t be charged in his third fatal shooting. Protesters were confronted by riot police, the National Guard and militarized federal law enforcement during the curfew.
Journalists, protesters and lawyers later learned that WPD had created a list of nearly 200 people during the summer of protest. Ratkowski had called it a “target list” in an email to assisting agencies. WPD publicly stated that the list — which included dozens of protesters, members of the Cole family, their attorneys, elected officials, and the author of this story — included witnesses, victims and suspects in possible crimes that occurred at the protests.
5.3.4 Criminal Intelligence Collection Analysis Distribution Policy – 24-18 (2)
Civil lawsuits revealed more about use of the list under Weber, who retired in 2021. Ratkowski in depositions explained that he began creating the list around June 2020, after Capt. Luke Vetter asked him to begin identifying active participants in the protests. Ratkowski gathered information from confidential law enforcement databases with access to drivers license information, home addresses, arrest records, and more. He combed social media accounts on Facebook and Tinder, sometimes using fake Facebook accounts registered as “confidential informants.”
Simply being tagged in a protest-related social media post could get someone on the list, Ratkowski said in a deposition. He agreed with attorneys when asked whether “mere affiliation with a protest” was enough, and confirmed that threatening violence or committing a crime was not required. Ratkowski said that if a superior asked him to make a list of every member of the Socialist Party he would, “because I would assume that he [Capt. Vetter] would have asked me to do something that wasn’t useless.” The attorney questioning Ratkowski responded, “I’m not asking whether it’s useful or useless, I’m asking whether it’s constitutional or not,” to which Ratkowski replied, “I can’t make that determination.”
The federal lawsuit eventually went to trial, where a jury ruled that WPD had not violated specific privacy laws related to obtaining and sharing drivers license information.
In an emailed statement, WPD said that “a key objective” of the new intelligence policy “was to clearly define the distinction between information and intelligence, ensuring officers understand when data becomes actionable. It applies to all WPD staff involved in intelligence creation and upholds protections against intelligence gathering based on legally protected characteristics.” The department added that, “though journalists are not explicitly mentioned, the department remains committed to safeguarding First Amendment rights for all individuals. Above all, the Wauwatosa Police Department prioritizes transparency and strengthening trust within the community.”
Frankie Miranda, the president of the Hispanic Federation, speaks at a press conference outside the U.S. Capitol on March 25, 2025, with representatives from 130 nonprofits that advocate for Latino communities. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — In a Tuesday press conference outside the U.S. Capitol, members of the Hispanic Federation detailed how the first three months of the Trump administration’s policies have harmed the Latino community rather than addressing economic concerns.
Frankie Miranda, the president of the federation, a nonprofit that focuses on civic engagement in the Latino community, said the president’s immigration crackdown has instilled fear and failed to tackle economic issues that influenced Latino voters in the 2024 presidential election, such as inflation and housing costs.
He said the revocation of legal status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants — many of them with work permits — will harm not only the Latino community but the economy overall.
“We want to ensure that our elected officials understand that this is going to have a negative impact on industries, on the economy,” he said. “This is going to have an impact on everyday Americans when you remove workers and people contributing and paying taxes to the economy.”
Miranda, along with representatives from 130 nonprofits, will spend Wednesday meeting with lawmakers to talk to them about the economic contributions of Latinos and how President Donald Trump’s plans for mass deportations harm the community.
Miranda said the groups will also stress to lawmakers how the cancellations of federal grants, which were already approved by Congress, have led to staff layoffs and undercut services for the Latino community, from job training to legal aid.
Federation members were joined by Democratic Reps. Maxwell Alejandro Frost of Florida and Chuy Garcia of Illinois for Tuesday’s press conference.
“We saw that this election, the economy was the number one concern of voters across this entire country,” Frost said.
Some of the groups at the press conference included the Carolina Migrant Network of North Carolina and the Orlando Center for Justice, of Florida.
Stefanía Arteaga, who co-founded the Carolina Migrant Network, said the nonprofit is the only organization in North Carolina that provides free legal services for immigrants who are in immigration detention centers.
She said many of those people who have called her organization had their legal statuses revoked.
“This is part of a larger systematic failure and strategy by this administration to put people in deportation proceedings and use them as scapegoats,” Arteaga said.
Frost decried the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown and the revocation of the legal status of more than 530,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
He said those immigrants, along with more than 350,000 Venezuelans who have lost Temporary Protected Status, “now will face deportation,” by April 2.
“These are our neighbors, our coworkers, our friends and our loved ones,” Frost said.
Garcia also slammed the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. High-profile raids have taken place in his district in Chicago.
“Raids are terrorizing our communities, and this is a show of the abuse of state power,” Garcia said.
In an interview with States Newsroom, Miranda said the Hispanic Federation has about $105 million in federal contracts that were approved by Congress but are now pending or on hold under the Trump administration.
The Trump administration has cancelled many federal contracts, zeroing in on those that address diversity, equity and inclusion. The White House has also canceled contracts with nonprofits that provide services for refugees and immigrants, from resettlement to legal services for unaccompanied minors.
Miranda said some of the contracts from the Hispanic Federation that are now frozen would award $1 million for legal services, $58 million for solar panel projects in Puerto Rico and $16 million to help people obtain digital skills for the workforce.
He said he believes these programs were targeted because they either aim to provide equity or promote environmental justice.
“We want to ensure that elected officials understand that in these efforts of efficiency, what you are creating is more chaos, disruption of essential services and (losing) the opportunity for the country to continue moving forward in the right direction and avoid the effects of falling into a recession,” Miranda said.
Karina Ayala-Bermejo, president of the Instituto Del Progreso Latino in Chicago, said for decades the nonprofit has provided free legal services for lawful permanent residents seeking to become naturalized citizens.
She said U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services cut her nonprofit’s federal contract worth $450,000.
“It is having us reconsider a fee-for-service model, that we know is going to create a substantial financial barrier on families who merely seek to be able to fully participate in the U.S. democracy,” Ayala-Bermejo said.
American Civil Liberties Union lead attorney Lee Gelernt holds a press conference outside the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia after a March 21, 2025, hearing on deportation flights that occurred despite a court’s restraining order in place. (Photo by Ariana Figueroa/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — A federal judge Friday probed the U.S. Department of Justice about whether the Trump administration knowingly defied his court order to return deportation flights to the United States and questioned the president’s authority to invoke a wartime law during peacetime.
The case, which is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court, will test President Donald Trump’s authority to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and apply it to any Venezuelan nationals ages 14 and up who are suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang amid his mass deportation plans.
Three deportation flights containing some Venezuelans subject to the proclamation that Trump signed last Friday were in transit when U.S. District Court Judge James Emanuel Boasberg issued a temporary restraining order to block the removals. But the administration continued sending the men to a notorious mega-prison in El Salvador.
The Trump administration published a highly produced video detailing the operation, but has not been forthright with answers to questions Boasberg posed about it.
“The government’s not being terribly cooperative at this point, but I will get to the bottom of whether they violated my order, who ordered this and what the consequences will be,” Boasberg said Friday.
Boasberg also pressed the Department of Justice attorney Drew Ensign on whether the Trump administration can deport people under the Alien Enemies Act without allowing the deportees to prove they are not members or associated with the Tren de Aragua gang.
“How do they challenge that removal?” Boasberg asked.
The Alien Enemies Act allows nationals of a country deemed an enemy of the U.S. to be detained and deported without due process of law regardless of immigration status.
Boasberg also raised concerns of using the proclamation when the U.S. is not at war.
“The policy ramifications for this are incredibly troublesome,” Boasberg said of the Alien Enemies Act. “This is a long way from the heartland of the act.”
A panel of judges in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit will hear oral arguments Monday afternoon on the Trump administration seeking an emergency stay on the restraining order.
Boasberg asked DOJ attorney Ensign to clarify how he interpreted the oral temporary restraining order issued on March 15.
He asked Ensign if he relayed to the Trump administration that his order included returning any Venezuelans back to the U.S. who were deported under the wartime authority.
“I understood your intent, that you meant that to be effective at that time,” Ensign said of the oral temporary restraining order.
In filings, the Department of Justice has argued that Boasberg’s oral argument was not binding because it was not written.
For nearly a week, the Department of Justice has evaded pointed questions from Boasberg about the timing of the deportation flights on March 15.
Boasberg said Thursday he would give the Trump administration until Tuesday to submit a declaration on whether the government was invoking the state-secrets privilege and a brief “showing cause why they did not violate the Court’s Temporary Restraining Orders by failing to return class members removed from the United States on the two earliest planes that departed on March 15, 2025.”
In Friday filings, Trump officials said they are currently having Cabinet-level conversations about using that privilege to block Boasberg from obtaining details about the timing of the deportation flights.
The Department of Justice has also argued that because the flights were no longer in U.S. airspace or territory when Boasberg issued the restraining order, they were not under U.S. courts’ jurisdiction.
Lead attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union Lee Gelernt pushed back on that claim. He told Boasberg that some immigrants on those deportation flights to El Salvador were returned to the U.S. because of mistakes and that the El Salvadoran “government would not take them.”
He said that included someone who was not a Venezuelan national, and a woman because the mega-prison is for men only.
He said the ACLU will submit an affidavit late Friday with more details.
Gelernt said the ACLU is also questioning the type of removal for people on the third flight, even though the Trump administration said those on that flight had final orders of removal and were not subject to the Alien Enemies Act.
Gelernt argued that in immigration law, those with final orders are required to be notified what country they are being deported to. He said that was not the case with the immigrants on the third flight, which originally went to Honduras before heading to El Salvador.
“We asked the judge to clarify that with the government, because it seems very doubtful that Venezuelans had a final order that said you could be removed to El Salvador,” Gelernt said to reporters after Friday’s hearing.
The White House earlier this week said of the men on the deportation flights, 137 were alleged Tren de Aragua members and deported under the Alien Enemies Act.
Attorneys for several of the 238 Venezuelan men deported argue their clients are not members of the gang and were only targeted by immigration officials because they had tattoos and were Venezuelan nationals.
Gelernt said that because the Trump administration is paying the government of El Salvador $6 million to imprison the men, he believes those men who were deported under the wartime law can be returned, although it would be a lengthy process.
“I think we very much think the federal court can order the U.S. to get them out, since they’re constructively in U.S. custody,” he said outside the courtroom. “The U.S. is apparently paying for it all. (El Salvador is) doing it at the behest of the United States.”
Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit that monitors human rights conditions around the world, has raised major concerns with the conditions of the prison and has noted that the group “is not aware of any detainees who have been released from that prison.”
Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s authoritarian president, called this week for the men taken to the mega prison to be returned to Venezuela, calling on El Salvador president to “not be an accomplice to this kidnapping, because our boys did not commit any crime in the United States, none,” according to CNN.
“They were not brought to trial, they were not given the right to a defense, the right to due process, they were deceived, handcuffed, put on a plane, kidnapped, and sent to a concentration camp in El Salvador,” Maduro said.
Several of the men who were transferred to El Salvador’s prison initially fled Venezuela because they experienced violence from officials after they partook in political protests against the Maduro regime, according to court filings.
A Texas National Guardsman observes as Border Patrol agents pat down migrants who have surrendered themselves for processing, May 10, 2023. (Photo by Corrie Boudreaux for Source NM)
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is gearing up to militarize a stretch of the southern border, according to a Washington Post report Thursday, raising concerns from experts that the move would put U.S. military members in direct contact with migrants, a possible violation of federal law.
The White House is mulling the creation of a military satellite installation across the 60-foot-deep strip of federal land known as the Roosevelt Reservation, according to the report.
The move would create a military buffer zone stretching across the U.S.-Mexico border in Arizona, California and New Mexico, and mean any migrant crossing into the United States would be trespassing on a military base, allowing active-duty troops to hold them until border patrol agents arrive.
Nearly 10,000 military personnel have already been deployed to the southern border, but creating the military buffer zone would be an escalation of the Trump administration’s ramp-up of the use of the U.S. military in its plans for mass deportation of immigrants without permanent legal status, which experts say would be illegal.
“The use of active-duty military for what clearly amounts to law enforcement on the border is absolutely, plainly illegal,” Stephen Dycus, a professor in national security law at the Vermont Law School, said during a Thursday interview. “It’s a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.”
The 1878 law generally prohibits the military from being used in domestic law enforcement.
Adam Isacson, director of defense oversight at the Washington Office of Latin America, a research and advocacy group that aims to advance human rights in North and South America, said the escalation of military presence at the border is new.
He added that the military being used to operate deportation flights has “involved an uncomfortable amount of contact between soldiers and migrants.”
“Most of the military that have been sent (to the border) over the years have been a couple thousand National Guard members at a time — a pretty low-level mission,” Isacson said. “So that chance of contact between the soldiers and civilians on U.S. soil (was) very, very, very, very slim. That’s all changing now.”
A Pentagon spokesperson told States Newsroom in an email Thursday that the department has “nothing to announce at this time” regarding the establishment of a base along stretches of the border.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
The scenario could spark further legal challenges against the Trump administration, which is already in hot water for potentially defying a federal judge’s order to halt deportation flights of Venezuelans under the wartime Alien Enemies Act.
While sending activity duty to the southern border has occurred for more than 20 years in intelligence and logistics roles, military members do not engage in immigration enforcement.
During a visit to the border Feb. 3, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters “guys and gals of my generation have spent decades in foreign countries guarding other people’s borders. It’s about time we secure our own border.”
“All options are on the table,” Hegseth said.
Joseph Nunn, liberty and national security counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice, said during a Thursday interview he would expect the Trump administration to face lawsuits for essentially using the military for civilian law enforcement.
“This is a transparent ruse to try to evade the Posse Comitatus Act by taking advantage of something called the military purpose doctrine,” Nunn said.
Under that doctrine, Nunn said, the military can maintain order or take action to further other military purposes, even if the action does have incidental benefits to civilian law enforcement. For example, if a drunken driver attempts to drive onto a base, military police can detain them before handing them over to civilian law enforcement.
But Nunn said specifically installing a base along the border as a way for the military to detain migrants as trespassers has not been tried before.
“It’s an abuse of the doctrine and one that the courts should reject because in that circumstance the military installation will have been created and the soldiers will have been stationed there for the purpose of assisting with a civilian law enforcement operation,” Nunn said. “That is immigration enforcement.”
Transferring federal land to the Department of Defense, which because it’s fewer than 5,000 acres doesn’t need congressional approval, comes at a time when border encounters are relatively low.
Apprehensions at the southern border have plummeted to their lowest level in 25 years, with 8,347 encounters reported in February, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection data.
The trend started in February of last year due to Mexico increasing immigration enforcement and policies under the Biden administration that limited asylum claims between ports of entry, said Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh of the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan immigration think tank.
“As with any change in administration, and this was true of the first Trump administration, because of the general rhetoric around immigration, we did see kind of an initial decrease, so it’s not altogether surprising to see that decrease,” Putzel-Kavanaugh, who studies migration trends along the border, said.
“There’s kind of a general wait-and-see period of people trying to figure out what makes the most sense in terms of their own needs and in their journey,” she added.
The sections along the southern border that the Trump administration is eyeing – U.S. Border Patrol sectors based in San Diego; Tucson, Arizona; and El Paso, Texas – are “consistently the busiest,” she said.
Putzel-Kavanaugh added that it’s typical for migration patterns between sectors to change.
“I think it’s certainly plausible to assume that, if they have this militarization campaign across sort of the western side of the border, it’s likely that flows will then start going east,” she said.
Democrats slammed the idea, questioning why defense funding should be used at the border as global conflict increases.
U.S. Sen. Ben Ray Luján, a New Mexico Democrat, expressed skepticism about relying on defense resources to solve migration issues.
“Securing our border and protecting the safety of New Mexicans is a top priority, which is why I supported the bipartisan border security agreement — an effort that was ultimately killed by then-candidate Donald Trump,” Luján said in a statement.
“Diverting military resources for this purpose would weaken our military readiness. There is broad bipartisan consensus that we need comprehensive immigration reform and stronger border security, but not at the expense of existing defense missions.”
Rep. Gabe Vasquez, also a New Mexico Democrat, said in a statement the reported plan is “yet another reckless and wasteful proposal that does nothing to fix our broken immigration system.”
“In a time of global uncertainty, our military resources are best used to combat serious international threats abroad,” Vasquez said.
The offices for the Republican-led Senate and House committees on the Armed Forces did not respond to requests for comment.
Source New Mexico editor Julia Goldberg contributed to this report.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi testifies before the Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearing on Jan. 15, 2025. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday refused to provide further details about deportation flights that were in flight when a federal judge issued an order blocking the invocation of the wartime law used to authorize the removals.
In new court filings, the Department of Justice said two deportation flights to El Salvador and Honduras were not subject to a restraining order from U.S. District Court Judge James Emanuel Boasberg because they were no longer in U.S. territory or airspace when the order was issued.
In a notice signed by Attorney General Pam Bondi, the Justice Department would not answer further questions about those flights, contradicting Boasberg’s order late Monday calling for the administration to answer four specific questions about details of the operation.
“The Government maintains that there is no justification to order the provision of additional information, and that doing so would be inappropriate, because even accepting Plaintiffs’ account of the facts, there was no violation of the Court’s written order (since the relevant flights left U.S. airspace, and so their occupants were ‘removed,’ before the order issued), and the Court’s earlier oral statements were not independently enforceable as injunctions,” according to the notice.
“The Government stands on those arguments.”
In response to the filing, Boasberg issued a new order, giving the administration until noon Eastern on Wednesday to give those details under seal.
Specifically, he is asking what times the flights took off from the United States, when they left U.S. airspace, when they landed in their designated countries, when those immigrants being deported were subject to the Alien Enemies Act and the number of people on the flights who were subject to the Alien Enemies Act.
The Department of Justice has also argued that an oral order given by Boasberg was “not enforceable” because it was not a written order.
In a temporary restraining order barring President Donald Trump from invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to detain and deport any Venezuelan nationals 14 and older who are suspected members of the Tren de Aragua gang, Boasberg also ordered those flights carrying Venezuelan men to return to the U.S. Those men instead were taken to a maximum security prison in El Salvador.
Boasberg on Monday demanded sworn statements from the Department of Justice to determine if the Trump administration relied on the Alien Enemies Act to deport any of the Venezuelan men flown to El Salvador, which would have violated his Saturday temporary restraining order.
In the Tuesday notice signed by Bondi, the Department of Justice also argued that “the Government should not be required to disclose sensitive information bearing on national security and foreign relations.”
Another hearing before Boasberg is set for Friday afternoon.
Robert Cerna, the acting field office director for enforcement and removal operations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said in a signed statement to the court that the immigrants on a third deportation flight after the Saturday restraining order were not removed under the Alien Enemies Act, but under a separate final removal authority known as Title 8.
“To avoid any doubt, no one on any flight departing the United States after 7:25 PM EDT on March 15, 2025, was removed solely on the basis of the Proclamation at issue,” he said.
Boasberg issued his temporary restraining order Saturday around 6:48 p.m. Eastern, according to court filings. One of the flights landed in Honduras at 7:36 p.m. Eastern and the other flight landed in El Salvador at 8:02 p.m. Eastern.
Cerna also clarified that the president signed the proclamation invoking the wartime law on Friday, but that ICE understood the proclamation went into effect after the White House published it Saturday afternoon.
Cerna said there are roughly 258 additional immigrants who would be subject to the proclamation. Of those people, Cerna said that 54 were already detained.
The Alien Enemies Act has only been invoked three times, all when the U.S. was at war with other countries. The most recent was during World War II, when it led to the rapid detention and internment camps of nationals from Japan, Italy and Germany.
The U.S. is not at war with another country, and Congress has not approved a declaration of war. The Trump administration has argued that by designating the Tren de Aragua gang as a terrorist group, the act can be invoked.
The White House has defended the deportation flights and has argued that it has not violated the court’s order.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Monday press briefing that the Trump administration is confident it will be successful in court.
She added that the U.S. paid El Salvador $6 million to detain the 261 men who were deported to the country.
The president has lashed out against the temporary restraining order, even calling for the impeachment of Boasberg, along with other federal judges who have ruled against his administration.
“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!! WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!,” Trump wrote on social media.
It prompted a rare statement of rebuke from U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John G. Roberts.
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
The Trump administration has already appealed the temporary restraining order to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals.
In that appeal, the Justice Department asked the appellate court to remove the case from Boasberg, taking issue with his decision to agree to a class action lawsuit, rather than apply the restraining order to the original five men in the suit.
The American Civil Liberties Union originally brought the suit with five men who are Venezuelan and were threatened “with imminent removal under” the Alien Enemies Act.
The case is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2016, Wisconsin’s neighboring state created the first in-prison trade school, and it has since been replicated across the nation. Gov. Tony Evers wants to turn Waupaun's prison into a similar facility.
The post Gov. Evers proposes to make Wisconsin prison a vocational village. What is that? Ask Michigan. appeared first on WPR.
Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) said she thought there were “worthy” projects in the proposal but criticized the $3.85 billion in bonding to pay for the projects. Gov. Tony Evers delivers his seventh State of the State address while standing in front of Assembly Speaker Robin Vos and Felzkowski. Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner
The State Building Commission is not recommending Gov. Tony Evers’ $4.1 billion capital projects proposal to the budget committee after Republican lawmakers voted against doing so saying that it wasn’t realistic and wasn’t created in a bipartisan manner.
The State Building Commission is made up of eight members including Evers, four Republican lawmakers, two Democratic lawmakers and one citizen member appointed to the body by Evers. The votes on each section of the capital projects budget was split down the middle, with Republicans all opposed. The outcome was expected as Republicans have said they plan to create their own proposal.
Evers’ proposal includes nearly $1.6 billion in projects for the University of Wisconsin System, $634 million to the Department of Corrections, $195 million for health facilities, $170 million for Department of Veterans Affairs’ projects, $164 million in projects requested for the Department of Natural Resources and investments in other areas.
Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R-Tomahawk) said she thought there were “worthy” projects in the proposal but criticized the $3.85 billion in bonding to pay for the projects.
“This is more new bonding in this capital budget than the last five capital budgets combined, and I think to get to a more appropriate level, further discussion is needed,” Felzkowski said. “We need to hear from stakeholders and the public and that just hasn’t happened.”
Sen. Andre Jacque (R-New Franken) said that he thinks lawmakers and Evers will be able to find some agreement, but argued that “shoehorning” money at the moment for projects will “limit the ability to have some of those discussions, or in some cases might prejudice the [Joint Finance] Committee against whatever we might do here.”
Evers’ ambitious proposal for reforming the state’s prisons would include infrastructure upgrades and capital improvements to Waupun Correctional Institution, Lincoln Hills School, Stanley Correctional Institution, Sanger B. Powers Correctional Center and John C. Burke Correctional Center. The projects are planned to be carried out one after the other and culminate in the closing of the Green Bay Correctional Institution.
Felzkowski said she was “very saddened” about the corrections proposal and called it a “missed opportunity” for a bipartisan solution.
“There’s quite a few of us in this Legislature who have worked diligently for corrections reform, and so much of the DOC capital budget rests on the changes to policy around corrections reform,” Felzkowski told Evers. Republican lawmakers have expressed opposition to proposals in the corrections budget that would increase early release.
“We could have been brought in earlier to discuss the changes or even when you had brought in a consultant around corrections, I would have loved to have been able to work with them and to help bring my side of the aisle into the reform process,” Felzkowski said.
The Joint Finance Committee, which is responsible for writing the budget, will kick off its work next week with briefings from the University of Wisconsin System and the Department of Corrections. Public listening sessions will then take place starting next week with lawmakers traveling to Kaukauna on April 2 and West Allis on April 4.
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Melissa Beson photo courtesy LDF Police Department
On Sunday, March 23, the Lac du Flambeau (LDF) Tribal Police Department in Vilas County reported an LDF tribal member, Melissa Beson, 37, has been missing since Monday, March 17.
The LDF Police Department said Beson’s family reported her missing.
A preliminary investigation revealed that Beson was last seen late Monday, March 17, walking on Village Road near Wayman Lane toward state Highway 47 on the Lac du Flambeau Reservation in Vilas County.
Beson was last seen wearing red sweatpants, a black sleeveless shirt and a gray sweatshirt.
Beson is a Native American female, 5’7”, with a medium build, brown hair, and brown eyes. She has numerous tattoos, including on her neck, arms and legs.
Melissa Beson – PD Poster (1)The LDF Police Department reports that Beson’s family is extremely worried about her and joins the LDF Tribal Police Department in seeking the public’s help in locating her.
The Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Chippewa — Waaswaaganing in the Ojibwe language — is a federally recognized Ojibwe Native American tribe.
Anyone with any information regarding Beson’s whereabouts should call the Lac du Flambeau Tribal Police Department at (715) 588-7717 or the Vilas County Sheriff’s Office at (715) 479-4441.
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Kelly O'Keefe Boettcher holds a photo of Brittany Doescher at a vigil near Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Fond du Lac on March 22, 2025 | Photo by Andrew Kennard/Wisconsin Examiner
At a vigil across the road from Taycheedah Correctional Institution in Fond du Lac, Wis., advocates sought to increase attention on the women’s prison.
“There’s been a lot of publicity with what goes on in the men’s prisons in the last couple of years, but that is something that is not just within those prisons, it is at the women’s prisons too,” Juli Bliefnick, who was once incarcerated at Taycheedah, said at the vigil on Saturday.
The small group of advocates met in a neighborhood near the prison and walked up to the facility, carrying signs bearing photos of two women.
Wisconsin Watch and Wisconsin Public Radio published an article on March 11 that reported the deaths of Shawnee Reed, 36, on Feb. 23, and Brittany Doescher, 33, on March 6, following hospital stays. The women were incarcerated at Taycheedah Correctional.
Bliefnick is the operations coordinator for FREE, a nonprofit addressing the gender-specific issues of women’s incarceration and reentry to society. She spoke about getting “some visibility for these women and honor[ing] their memory” and showing support for women currently incarcerated at the facility.
The official causes of the deaths are still not public, according to the article. Family members said hospital staff linked the deaths to pneumonia. Following discussions with doctors, an unnamed family member of Doescher believes earlier treatment could have prevented her death. Family members said both women started mentioning health issues over the phone around a month before the article’s publication on March 11.
The obituary for Doescher says that she “suffered and died from complications from pneumonia left untreated.”
In a statement to Wisconsin Watch and WPR, Department of Corrections communications director Beth Hardtke said the agency was taking steps to prevent the spread of respiratory illnesses to staff and incarcerated people in a time of reportedly high numbers of respiratory illness cases in Wisconsin, the article said. She detailed actions taken by the department and said people incarcerated at Wisconsin prisons, including Taycheedah, recently received testing and treatment for Influenza A.
Another advocate at the vigil, Melissa Ludin, said she is a member of FREE’s board.
“And I think if anything, I think there’s things that really need to be looked into with that,” she said, referring to Doescher’s family saying the cause of her death was untreated pneumonia. “…Are there other women that are sick?”
Cellmate homicide
In July 2023, Cindy Schulz-Juedes, 68, died at Taycheedah Correctional. Taylor Sanchez, 29 and also incarcerated at Taycheedah, was charged with first-degree intentional homicide of her cellmate. A jury trial is scheduled for July and early August.
In early March, the Examiner sent a records request for any reports produced by the Fond du Lac Police Department’s investigation into Schulz-Juedes’s death. The department denied the request on the grounds that disclosure could interfere with an ongoing prosecution or investigation.
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Attorney Steve Hurley with documents of the type Wisconsin prisons are shredding. | Photo by Erik Gunn/Wisconsin Examiner
The Office of the Wisconsin State Public Defender and other attorneys are expressing concerns over attorney-client confidentiality and the timely and accurate delivery of legal mail for clients incarcerated in state prisons.
On Sept. 10, the Wisconsin Department of Corrections (DOC) adopted a new policy for external paperwork sent to prisons. The protocol calls for incarcerated residents to watch the copying of their legal mail and allows them to review the copies; then the original mail is shredded.
Mail covered under the policy includes letters from an attorney, law office, clerk or judge of any state or federal court, court staff or tribal court. It also covers correspondence with federal and state elected or appointed officials including the governor, Wisconsin legislators, the secretary of the DOC and others.
The process of opening and photocopying the mail, providing the copy to the incarcerated person and shredding the original mail is documented with the facility’s camera system, the DOC policy states.
The policy’s general guidelines allow staff to inspect legal documents “to the extent necessary to determine if the documents contain contraband or if the purpose is misrepresented.” If staff have reason to believe a letter is not a legal document “and the safety and security of the institution is implicated,” the policy allows them to read legal documents.
The DOC’s protocol has garnered criticism from the Wisconsin public defender’s office. Public defenders’ primary concerns are timely delivery of information to clients, the accuracy of the copying and protecting attorney-client confidentiality.
“Unfortunately, with DOC’s new mail policy we have experienced significant delays with mail delivery, compromised confidentiality, and in some cases legal documents have been lost,” said Deputy State Public Defender Katie York. “This has impacted our ability to develop trusting attorney/client relationships and has caused unnecessary delays for our clients and others impacted by the legal system. However, in our continuous efforts to provide the highest quality defense for our clients, we will keep doing everything we can to maintain communication with our clients.”
The Wisconsin American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has also raised concerns about how the DOC’s handling of legal mail is affecting incarcerated people and the legal process.
“Alarmingly, the DOC continues to introduce new restrictions that have made it increasingly difficult for people in DOC custody to receive legal mail and books,” Emma Shakeshaft, senior attorney for the ACLU of Wisconsin said in an October statement, “and we are very concerned about how these policy changes are negatively impacting those in custody. Legal mail is essential to incarcerated individuals’ ability to access the courts and to communicate confidentially with their legal counsel.”
Beth Hardtke, director of communications for the DOC, said the department was not aware of any recent concerns from the Office of the State Public Defender about the DOC’s legal mail policy, and that the DOC would follow up with them to learn more.
Hardtke said the public defenders’ office had input into the development of the policy, and that the policy was revised based on the office’s feedback before it went into effect in September 2024. The DOC is not aware of any significant delays regarding legal mail, she said.
She said the postal service delivers legal mail directly to facilities, “where it is promptly processed in front of the individual to whom the mail is addressed.”
“The policy also details a number of steps that are taken to protect the confidentiality of the process including having the process take place in front of cameras placed so that writing is illegible, special copiers just for this purpose and ensuring that the person in our care is part of the process,” Hardtke said.
DOC’s goal with the legal mail policy was to prevent intoxicating substances from entering facilities through legal mail, Hardtke said.
In November2021, the DOC announced that it would start partnering with a company to photocopy the personal mail of all incarcerated adults in an attempt to keep drug-laden mail out of prisons. The department began giving residents photocopies of their mail instead of original letters.
In a 2021 press release about the new policy, the DOC said that despite its previous efforts, in September 2021 alone there were 182 drug incidents within Wisconsin prisons, with 16 people needing emergency medical treatment.
The department said it had seen an increase of drug incidents among incarcerated people. This included the use of synthetic cannabinoids, which can cause violent behavior or a need for emergency medical treatment, the department said. The DOC said paper and envelopes could be sprayed with or soaked in the drugs and sent into prisons through the mail.
In August 2022, the agency said it had seen a decrease in the total number of drug incidents at adult facilities between November 2021 and February 2022. The agency attributed the decrease to its new policy of photocopying mail. The DOC also said it saw a decrease in overdoses requiring transport to a medical facility.
After receiving inquiries about the department’s controversial ban on used books, the department sent data to reporters in late September. DOC staff reviewed contraband incident reports that facility staff had flagged as drug-related between 2019 and Sept. 18, 2024.
The department said some drug-related incidents recorded through a medical record or conduct report may not be reflected in their numbers. The DOC also said not all incident reports flagged as drug related turn out to actually be drug-related.
The DOC said legal mail tested positive in five incidents in 2021, and in 2022, there were 10 instances of material “purporting to be legal mail” that tested positive for drugs.
Six incidents in 2023 involved legal mail, the department said. The DOC said legal mail tested positive for drugs in at least seven incidents in 2024, as of Sept. 18.
When it comes to mail or donations that tested positive for drugs, the department said it is “often unable to say” whether they are from a legitimate entity, or from someone impersonating another person or organization.
In an email to the nonprofit Wisconsin Books to Prisoners in August, then-Administrator of the Division of Adult Institutions Sarah Cooper spoke about impersonation. She said “bad actors” impersonated agencies to send drugs into prisons.
“To provide some examples, there have been many instances of drugs coming in via mail (and publications/books) which appear to be sent from the Child Support Agency, the IRS, the State Public Defender’s Office, the Department of Justice and individual attorneys,” Cooper said.
In the August email, Cooper said the DOC had had to “implement a whole new process” for handling mail from the entities she mentioned.
The number of drug incidents involving legal mail has fallen to zero, according to a review of contraband incident reports that facility staff flagged as drug-related, Hardtke said. She said between Sept. 19 and Feb. 28, there were no incidents documented in those reports of legal mail testing positive for intoxicants.
She said these records may not include all incidents, since some incidents may be documented in conduct reports, other types of incident reports or medical records.
“The most important thing to know about the legal mail policy is that it works,” Hardtke said.
But York said she also knows there have been instances of false positive tests.
“I know it has happened because I’ve talked to both staff and private bar attorneys where the institution has sent back materials because they tested positive,” York said. Transcripts that were not drug-laced have been returned after positive tests, she said. She could not provide a number of such incidents and said she also believed some documents that were confiscated after positive tests were not sent back.
Hardtke said the DOC uses the IONSCAN 600 testing technology to test books, packages and other materials coming into DOC facilities. She said the technology was chosen in consultation with the Wisconsin Department of Justice and the Wisconsin State Crime Laboratories “in part because its results have held up to court scrutiny.”
Some family members of incarcerated people in Canada expressed concern that ion scanners yielded false positive test results, and some experts have raised questions about ion scanners’ ability to distinguish between banned drugs and everyday chemicals.
Steve Hurley, a defense attorney at Hurley Burish, S.C. in Madison, told the Examiner about a case a few years ago in which his firm represented a lawyer who was accused of sending drugs to a client.
He said their investigation used the test used by the DOC and got a false positive, and that the department relied on a presumptive test that was not intended to give a conclusive result.
This test was not the IONSCAN 600. The DOC did not say whether it currently uses other tests as well as the IONSCAN 600.
“They didn’t charge him criminally because I think they knew that they had misused the [drug] test,” Hurley said. “So when I called them on it, eventually, they just dropped the whole thing and reinstated his ability to communicate with his client.”
Shakeshaft said attorneys attempting to communicate with their clients are not the source of drugs in prison. She thinks there should be an alternative method of getting legal mail to clients without having all the documents copied and the originals shredded.
“To the extent that third parties are attempting to disguise contraband as legal mail, there’s a lot of less restrictive ways to address that, to ensure that legal mail is coming from licensed attorneys… [Methods that] are not nearly as much of a threat to attorney-client confidential communications,” she said.
York said her office asked about creating a process that would certify the mail was from the assigned attorney and not from an impersonator.
“We asked if there was some sort of system, if it was like, some sort of changing numbering system, or something that we could put on the envelopes that would ensure that they knew that it was coming from our office,” she said.
York said her office also made an offer to reach out to a facility beforehand when they’re sending a client their file. The public defender’s office would let them know how many boxes they would be sending with a client file, so the facility would know in advance that the documents were coming from their office. She said the offer was not accepted.
York said her office used to receive calls seeking to verify that her office had sent mail to a resident. She didn’t think this was consistent across all facilities.
“They would call our office and ask, ‘Did you send mail to this person?’ when they got letters,” said York. “I used to get those calls when I was the appellate division director. So that was another way that they used to try to kind of validate the fact that it came from an attorney.”
Hurley said that as a defense lawyer, it’s his job to not trust the government when it comes to his clients. He believes his clients should receive their legal mail unopened.
“The minute you open a lawyer’s mail, somebody is going to look at it,” Hurley said. “I don’t care what they say about their policies, somebody’s going to look at it. And you can’t do that.”
If others know what someone is convicted of, it could lead to a more difficult time in prison, Hurley said. He also said information in an incarcerated person’s legal mail isn’t necessarily about their criminal record.
“If you were getting divorced, do you want your neighbor to know what you’re arguing with your spouse over about what the extent of your property is?” Hurley said. “No, and you don’t want a guard to know that either.”
Nicole Masnica, an attorney with Gimbel, Reilly, Guerin & Brown LLP in Milwaukee, said prison staff reviewing privileged communications and legal mail from counsel creates a concern about the safety and security of incarcerated people in the DOC.
Legal correspondence and materials “may very well contain” information detailing a person’s cooperation with authorities against other incarcerated people “and even sometimes staff employed by the Department of Corrections,” she said in a statement emailed to the Examiner.
“I have represented individuals who have expressed concerns about confidential information from legal correspondence getting into the wrong hands at the prisons, and policies like those currently in place with the DOC that permit the reviewing of confidential information by DOC staff only amplifies those risks to individuals assisting law enforcement investigations,” Masnica said.
Shakeshaft said there are opportunities during the copying and shredding of legal mail for someone to view the documents. She also raised the question of how the process would be filmed without the camera viewing information in the legal mail.
“There’s a number of different parts of the policy where confidentiality is threatened overall,” she said.
Attorney Lonnie Story sent the Examiner a conduct report from when an incarcerated man, Justin Welch, was written up by a DOC staff member in February 2024. The report indicates a staff member read a letter from Welch that was “addressed to Story Law Firm Attorney Lonnie Story.”
According to the report, in the letter, Welch referenced a recent assault he was involved in with another person. Welch said that he was going to be placed by this person and “will have no choice but to fight him again. This is what the WCI does this time I will hurt him.” The staff member wrote the conduct report, saying Welch was making direct physical threats to the other person.
Story said he contacted Department of Justice attorneys, who called the warden. Story sent the Examiner a letter from the warden on which Welch was copied, dated March 25, 2024. The letter said the warden had initiated a review of the incident, and the hearing officer’s decision and the punishment of 30 days in restrictive housing were reversed.
Welch sent the Examiner a complaint he made to the DOC about a prison denying three of his emails, preventing them from reaching the intended recipients. (Electronic correspondence is not treated as legal mail under DOC policy.)
Two emails were intended for a reporter, while the third was sent to Story. According to Welch’s complaint, a staff member told him that emails were not for legal communication and an attorney call should be set up instead. Welch’s complaint was successful, leading to a ruling that his emails should not have been denied.
Devin Skrzypchak, a resident of Oshkosh Correctional Facility, said he has concerns that the prison staff have had access to his legal mail for up to three days while the prison was setting up a time for the copying and shredding when he could be present. He has concerns that his legal mail could have been read during that wait time.
Not all legal mail involves physical documents, according to Masnica. If there are large files, it’s cheaper to send a hard drive or USB. In one case, Masnica said she sent documents related to potential jurors and received an email from the prison.
The person from the prison who contacted Masnica didn’t necessarily think the documents were related to litigation, she said. To her, it was clear that the prison had reviewed the mail in detail.
“They had made remarks that it was not just the jurors in the case, but all jurors potentially that were going to be called that week, or that month,” Masnica said.
Masnica said she complained and was sent a policy. DOC policy says that when a facility receives new digitally formatted legal material, it shall assign staff to review the content with the incarcerated person present to make sure it is “legal in nature.”
The policy states that “if any file is found to contain contraband, the data storage device may be subject to disposal” in accordance with the DOC’s contraband policy after consultation with the Office of Legal Counsel.
“We’ve heard of attorneys having to push back court deadlines and delays because they can’t continue that communication [with clients],” said Shakeshaft. “They can’t get the legal documents to clients in time, or clients aren’t getting the correct legal documents.”
The Examiner asked York about specific situations that make it critical for the incarcerated person to have the legal mail for the case to proceed in court.
“There is not a super clean answer to this, but there are some situations, for example, we need clients to sign documents,” said York. “One example of that is notice of intent to appeal in a termination of parental rights case; we have to have a wet signature from the client on the notice before we file it, and it’s a pretty tight turnaround. It’s 30 days.”
York said there’s also a problem when clients don’t accept their mail due to the policy of copying and shredding. This leaves the attorney with the option of meeting in person to get a signature on a form, which can be time consuming.
Masnica recalled her firm having to send mail multiple times because a client didn’t receive it.
“If we’re sending something to a client on the street who is living in their home, we never really have issues,” Masnica said.
Story said he’s had an issue with not receiving mail that a client said they sent to him.
“Most disturbing is when my clients have part of their case record from their legal materials disappear,” Story said. “Their file doesn’t follow them to the next institution, or part of it is mailed to me and not the whole of it.”
Dorin Ferguson, who is incarcerated at the Wisconsin Secure Program Facility in Boscobel, said he has sent mail to Story that didn’t arrive, including mail that was returned to Ferguson.
DOC policy allows the resident to check the copied legal documents and request two rescans. York said sending large files poses a risk of miscopying.
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Wisconsin is part of seven of the 130-plus lawsuits against the Trump administration, the state Department of Justice says.
The post Wisconsin involved in 7 lawsuits against the Trump administration appeared first on WPR.
Attorneys Nate Cade (far left) and Kimberley Motley (center) stand with the mother of Alvin Cole, Tracy (far right), and other members of Cole's family. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
A civil trial in Milwaukee’s federal courthouse over the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Alvin Cole by former Wauwatosa police officer Joseph Mensah ended in a hung jury on Thursday. After four days of hearing testimony and evidence, the eight-member jury was unable to come to a unanimous decision about whether Mensah used excessive and unreasonable force when he shot Cole on Feb. 2, 2020.
A new trial has been set for September of this year, with pretrial preparations expected in August. The day began with closing arguments from attorney Nate Cade, who told the mostly white jury of seven women and one man to “remember who’s involved.” Cade showed a picture of Cole to the jury, saying, “He’s a kid, just a kid.”
Cade recounted the four days of testimony, starting with Cole’s father, Albert, who said he will be haunted by the memory of dropping off his son, the last time he saw him, “for the rest of his life.” Cade pointed to conflicting testimony about the shooting among the police officers who were there, and emphasized the testimony of David Shamsi, a combat veteran and FBI agent, who said Cole did not move or point a gun at Mensah before he fired.
Another officer, Jeffrey Johnson, also testified that he did not see a weapon pointed at Mensah at the time of the shooting, and that Cole was on his hands and knees. Cade said that if Mensah had “paused a moment, Alvin Cole would still be alive.”
Plaintiffs’ attorneys also reminded the jury that after the shooting, Evan Olson, Mensah’s friend on the force, went off with Mensah in a squad car where they had an unrecorded conversation, in violation of polices stating officers should be kept separate after a shooting to avoid statement contamination.
Cade stressed to the jury that in order for Mensah to be right, “everybody else has to be wrong,” and that Mensah had never apologized on the stand for the shooting.
Attorney Joseph Wirth, representing Mensah, said that night consisted of split second decisions. “Alvin Cole made catastrophically bad decisions,” said Wirth, arguing that Cole brought a gun to the mall, got into a fight, fled from and fired upon police, and then tried to fire again before Mensah killed him. “You can’t bring 20-20 hindsight,” said Wirth, urging the jurors to put themselves in Mensah’s shoes that night. Wirth refuted plaintiffs’ attorneys who said Mensah was bored in his own sector, and wanted some action. Wirth stressed that when an officer perceives danger, he has a duty to act and “it is not necessary [to prove] if this danger actually existed.”
Wirth argued that Shamsi, who said the gun didn’t move at all, was still prepared to shoot Cole, and that the teen never stopped running, or indicated he wanted to surrender.
Wirth also said that Cole pointed a gun both at Mensah and Olson, suggesting that the two officers are not contradicting each other. Plaintiffs’ attorneys asked for $22 million in damages, which Wirth called outrageous.
The jury went into deliberations shortly after noon, and returned around 4:30 p.m. saying they were unable to come to a decision. They were told by the judge to go back into deliberations until 5 p.m. When they were called back, they had still been unable to reach a unanimous decision. Judge Lynn Adelman said one main issue was the quality of squad car videos. The jury was excused, and a new trial was set for Sept. 8, at 9 a.m.
At the end of the day as the jury returned, at least five U.S. marshals, several of them armed, entered the court room. The arrival of the armed marshals caused a stir in the courtroom from the gallery to the plaintiffs’ bench and attracted the attention of Judge Adelman himself. “I don’t want marshals here,” Adelman said. It’s unclear why the marshals were there, but attorney Cade told media and the judge that it was inappropriate, and could send the wrong message to a jury. “People get screened coming into this courthouse,” said Cade. “The family has not shown out…They have not done anything dangerous, they have not made any threats.”
Tracy Cole, Alvin’s mother, said she was satisfied with the presentation of her family’s case. “I can’t complain,” she said, “they showed the evidence, everything on the table. We ain’t gave up, we’re not going to give up.” Undiscouraged by the hung jury she said, “it just make us fight more.” Cole did say that she was hurt when she wasn’t allowed to testify during the trial. “I thought that if I would’ve spoke on it, I thought it will let some of the relief off of me, but now it haven’t because I still have that pain inside,” said Cole. “It hurts, but I’m dealing with it.”
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