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Recent Blog Posts
Wisconsin Legislature Considers OWI Five Strikes Law
Wisconsin has something of a national reputation for being lenient on people charged with OWIs. In fact, Wisconsin is the only state that still treats a first-time OWI offense as a traffic violation rather than a criminal charge. Yet, that reputation for leniency may be about to change. The Wisconsin state legislature is considering a new bill that would impose a lifetime driving ban on drivers who were convicted of five OWIs. Of course, several other bills designed to increase penalties on people convicted of repeat drunk driving offenses were introduced during the previous legislative session, and they did not pass.
The New Law's Effects
The new law would introduce a lifetime driver's license revocation for people who were convicted of five OWIs over the course of their lives. The idea behind the bill is that driving is a privilege rather than a right, and that people who cannot do it safely should not be allowed on the road. The law itself is based on a similar policy currently in place in New York, where people lose their licenses after three DUIs in 25 years or five over a lifetime.
License Plate Readers: An Invasion of Privacy?
Police departments in Wisconsin have access to a little-known piece of technology with some surprising implications for privacy. Some squad cars now have an automatic license plate reader (ALPR). The system catalogs every license plate it passes and records the position in a police database. The ALPR system has proven useful in apprehending some criminals, such as a copper theft ring, but it also raises serious privacy concerns since it logs data indiscriminately on both potential offenders and people without any criminal history, outstanding tickets, or outstanding warrants.
How the System Works
The system works by way of four cameras mounted to the squad car, each of which face different directions. The cameras independently photograph the other cars around the squad car, reading their license plates and storing the images. The images are stored in a database along with tags indicating the location the vehicle was spotted using an on-board GPS.
Drivers' Rights during Traffic Stops
Although many drivers understand that they have certain rights during traffic stops, often these rights are misunderstood or go unexercised. Yet, with over 200,000 traffic stops a year according to a report by the Wisconsin State Patrol, many people stand to benefit from more clearly understanding their rights when interacting with the police. With regard to traffic stops, two of the most important rights that people have are the right to not consent to searches, and the right to remain silent.
The Right Not to Consent to Searches
The Fourth Amendment provides people the right to be free from unreasonable searches. This means that police cannot simply stop a person and search their car without good reason. Instead, they need to have “probable cause” to believe that their search would turn up evidence of a crime. This is important because if an officer performs a search without probable cause, then any evidence they find cannot be used at trial.
Understanding the Exclusionary Rule
The U.S. Constitution provides a variety of rights to people accused of crimes, such as the right to a jury trial, the right to avoid testifying against oneself, and the right to be safe from cruel and unusual punishment. One of the most important of these rights is the right to be protected from unreasonable searches, which comes from the Fourth Amendment. This right prevents the police from searching a person's home or property without a warrant (with some exceptions).
This criminal right is unique because of the way the government enforces it. Many constitutional rights are enforced by monetary damages. If a person has their rights violated, then they can sue the government and recover money for the harm they suffered. The protection against unreasonable searches is enforced through something known as the “exclusionary rule.” The exclusionary rule states that any evidence that police uncover as a result of an illegal search may not be used in court. Additionally, any evidence that the police later discover as a result of illegally-obtained evidence is also banned from trial under the colorfully named doctrine of “the fruit of the poison tree.”
Understanding Computer Crime
From laptops to smartphones, computers have become a ubiquitous part of nearly everyone's lives. People commonly joke that people have more computing power in their pockets today than NASA did when landing someone on the moon. As much as computers are helpful in everyday life, they have also created a new vulnerability, computer crime. Computer thieves, who are commonly referred to as hackers or crackers, can lift a person's account data out of a computer from across the country. Even massive, well-funded corporations like Sony can be targeted by such attacks. This sort of crime required a new type of law to protect against it. To that end, Congress passed the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in 1986, and have updated it six times over the years in order to better suit the rapidly changing technological landscape.
Aerial Surveillance and Traffic Tickets
Drivers on Wisconsin roads who hear a plane overhead may want to take a second to check their speedometers. They might find that those planes are Wisconsin State Patrol flights, an aerial surveillance unit that works with officers on the ground to dole out tickets to unsuspecting drivers. The surveillance missions have led to the issuance of thousands of traffic tickets. Of course, there are certain areas that are more likely to see this sort of aerial surveillance, so motorists should be aware of when they are particularly likely to encounter these aerial patrols.
Aerial Surveillance Statistics
The state highway patrol's aircraft surveillance program has been highly effective at helping officers on the ground issue traffic tickets. Last year, officers conducted over 2,600 traffic stops as a result of tips from the aerial surveillance crew, according to a report. These stops resulted in over 1800 speeding tickets, but speeding is not all that aerial surveillance crews watch for. They also check for other traffic violations such as tailgating, and they look for more serious crimes. Aerial surveillance units have made numerous drug and felony arrests as a result of their unique vantage point.
Truth in Politics Laws
It is not a controversial statement to say that advertisers often stretch the truth, but the law does place limits on what they can say. A company that spins the facts too much may risk a lawsuit because of false advertising and unfair competition. The lawsuit can come from either the FTC or from a competitor. Interestingly, a similar law exists in Wisconsin with regard to politics. Statute 12.05 makes it a crime to “knowingly make . . . a false representation pertaining to a candidate . . . to affect voting at an election.” Yet, these truth in politics laws are often difficult to enforce because of the First Amendment concerns that they raise. Still, a Wisconsin state assembly race may give rise to a criminal case under that statute
The State Assembly Race
The Crime of Battery in Wisconsin
Battery is one of the more common crimes prosecuted is Wisconsin. However, just because it is common does not mean that it is trivial. Whether it started as a bar fight, self-defense, or just a momentary lapse, the crime of battery charge can have serious consequences, if it is not handled properly. Consequently, people should understand how Wisconsin Law defines the different levels of battery, along with the potential defenses that may be available to them, which may range from consent by the other side to acting in self-defense.
What Constitutes Battery
Although the crime of battery is often discussed as though it were a single crime, there are actually a variety of levels to it under Wisconsin law. The lowest level of battery is simple battery, a Class A misdemeanor that the law defines as intentionally causing bodily harm to another person. The extra levels of battery increase in severity as the harm and the intent behind it get more serious. For instance, if a person causes great bodily harm, but only intends to cause bodily harm, then the crime gets upgraded to a Class H felony, but if the person intended to cause great bodily harm in addition to actually causing it, then the crime is a Class E felony.
Hazing Law in Wisconsin
Hazing, bullying done to people in order to initiate them into an organization, was once thought of as a bit of harmless fun that helped people build camaraderie. However, it has since become clear to state governments that hazing can actually have serious consequences, and can even result in the death of students when it gets out of hand. As a result, states, including Wisconsin, have passed laws criminalizing hazing. These laws take very different view of what qualifies as hazing and what the penalties can be. It is important for people in positions of authority to understand the Wisconsin law on hazing and the penalties that it imposes.
What Hazing Is
Although people may have an intuitive sense of what hazing is, people should understand the long list of actions that can qualify as hazing under Wisconsin's law. The law prohibits any act that intentionally or recklessly puts a student's physical well-being in danger in order to initiate them into an organization. The law also includes an extensive list of examples such as physical brutality like whipping or beating, forced consumption of substances like food or alcohol, or forced confinement. However, the list is merely a set of examples and the law may apply to more than just that conduct.
A Primer on Securities Fraud
With an ever-growing number of public financial scandals, white collar criminal prosecutions are becoming a larger and larger part of the federal criminal caseload. Although white collar crime is a broad umbrella that can implicate many different kinds of activity, one of the most common white collar crimes is securities fraud. However, referring to securities fraud as a single crime is somewhat misleading. The statute that covers it actually uses it as an umbrella term for different types of fraud related to financial instruments. Two of the most important types of securities fraud are the misrepresentation of material information related to the security and insider trading.
Material Misrepresentations
One of the most common types of securities fraud is through material misrepresentations. The securities law makes it a federal crime to be dishonest about facts about a company that would be important to investors. Both people inside and outside of a company can run afoul of this law. From within the company, one of the most common ways to do it is through falsified filings. For instance, if a company inflates its earnings, reporting them as being higher than they actually are, then they could be charged with securities fraud, especially if the company later enters bankruptcy despite reporting strong profits.
