News Briefs
Classic Texts Challenge Lawyers'
Long-Held Beliefs
Comfortable resolutions elude government lawyers
in Tocqueville Project
The first lawyer to say "case closed" at a Tocqueville Seminar
probably will be sent home to write a book report on Herman Melville's
novella Billy Budd.
Open-and-shut cases are hard to find in the complex stories, like
Billy Budd, that were staple reading for members of the State
Bar's Government Lawyers Division involved in the
seminar project. They volunteered for
the project after learning that the GLD was one of eight groups in six
states selected to participate in the series of six seminars funded by
the Lilly Foundation. The diverse group has met monthly since January to
discuss assigned texts that illuminate the civic character of their
work.
The seminar project was named after Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th
century French author of Democracy in America. This year, the
cable channel C-SPAN commemorates
Tocqueville's nine-month journey around the eastern U.S. in 1831,
which inspired his still often-quoted book. Through next Jan. 19,
C-SPAN's Washington Journal will tour the locations Tocqueville
visited during his U.S. tour, including Green Bay on Aug. 11.
Tocqueville's book deals with government and the law, major themes in
all six books assigned to the GLD group. Teacher-moderators Laura
McClure and Richard Heine-man led the group through Democracy in
America, Billy Budd, Aeschylus' trilogy The
Oresteia, Plato's Apology, Shakespeare's Measure for
Measure and Kafka's The Trial.
The stories illustrate various positions on complicated legal issues
such as civil liberty, private and public morality, the law's
inscrutability and arbitrariness, the relationship between human law and
divine law and minority rights in a democracy. The books do not leave
readers with a comfortable sense of finality. Conflicts raised in the
opening chapters of Billy Budd seem even farther from
resolution by the end of the book. Such ambiguity led seminar
participants to question their long-held beliefs.
"Lawyers can get into a mind-set that resolution is always
achievable," said group member Jack Stark, an assistant chief counsel
for the Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau in Madison. "That's what
the law does - it resolves disputes so that they don't go on
forever."
Aside from getting lawyers to rethink their positions on weighty
issues, the seminar provided the government lawyers, who often work in
isolation, an opportunity to socialize with colleagues.
"It's nice to have an opportunity to meet and break through the walls
around us," said Stark.
Enthusiasm for the seminars has led the group to consider holding a
seventh session on their own. The profession would benefit enormously if
such seminars for lawyers and judges sprang up statewide, according to
Stark.
"Anything that encourages people to rethink their accepted positions
is healthy," Stark said.
The GLD group's 18 members also included Burnie Bridge, deputy state
attorney general; Cheryl Daniels, administrative law judge; Eunice
Gibson, Madison city attorney; Wauwatosa attorney Paul Gossens; Dan
Graff, DNR; John Hayes, Milwaukee County Child Support; Dave Hoel and
Robert Hunter, assistant state attorneys general; Roth Judd, State
Ethics Board Director; Madelon Lief and Jefren Olsen, Legislative
Reference Bureau; John Luetscher, Brown County district attorney; Erik
Peterson, Richland County assistant district attorney; Gail Prost,
Manitowoc County assistant district attorney; Bill Rhoden, MATC general
counsel; Jacquelynn Rothstein, administrative law judge; and John
Schweitzer, Wisconsin Dept. of Regulation and Licensing.
Defense Attorneys Seek Trial Publicity
Rule Change
Most southern Wisconsin television and radio stations and newspapers
found the lead story for their June 10 broadcasts and June 11 front
pages at a press conference held in Milwaukee.
The report of a 34-count indictment delivered by a federal prosecutor
at the conference held a rare combination of compelling elements.
Seventeen members of what one Milwaukee newspaper called a "notorious
motorcycle gang" faced federal racketeering charges, which included
bombings, murders and drug dealing. The group the accused gang members
belonged to - the Outlaws Motorcycle Club - even sounded provocative.
The federal prosecutor described the club as a sophisticated, dangerous
organized crime group, comparing it to the Mob. Missing from every news
outlet's story was a balancing comment from a defense lawyer.
The defense attorneys involved are likely to remain tight-lipped as
those indicted go to trial and media attention mounts. Defense attorneys
risk disciplinary action for violating the trial publicity restrictions
imposed by the Wisconsin Supreme Court's Rules of
Professional Conduct for Lawyers.
More than a month before this sensational case, the Wisconsin
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (WACDL) petitioned the court May
2 for a change in SCR 20:3.6. The
change would allow lawyers to respond to publicity affecting their
client. The petition, set for a public hearing on Sept. 9, would bring
Wisconsin's trial publicity rule into conformity with the current ABA
model rule.
The petition proposes adding a fourth paragraph to SCR 20:3.6 that
reads:
"(d) Notwithstanding paragraphs (a)-(c), a lawyer may make a
statement that a reasonable lawyer would believe is required to protect
a client from the substantial undue prejudicial effect of recent
publicity not initiated by the lawyer or the lawyer's client. A
statement made pursuant to this paragraph shall be limited to such
information as is necessary to mitigate the recent adverse
publicity."
In the wake of the O.J. Simpson criminal murder trial, California
implemented the same rule change to clarify lawyers' opportunities to
make public comments to the media. Wisconsin attorneys have avoided
testing the limits of the state's trial publicity rule because it lacks
clarity.
"SCR 20:3.6 currently provides no clear guidelines other than
permitting prosecution statements while discouraging defense responses,"
said Milwaukee attorney James A. Walrath, WACDL president.
"Responses are necessary to try to neutralize adverse, prejudicial,
pretrial publicity."
Defense attorney responses to pretrial publicity could help balance
public perception of the accused, thereby expanding the pool of
potential jurors, Walrath added.
Committee Honors State's Top
Judges
The State Bar's Bench Bar Committee invites members and the public to
submit nominations for awards that will honor two Wisconsin judges.
The second annual Judge of the Year Award will be presented during
the State Bar Midwinter Convention in January 1998 to a judge who has
demonstrated:
leadership in advancing the quality of justice, judicial education or
innovative programs; high ideals, personal character and judicial
competence; and active involvement in community efforts that enhance the
judicial system. Eau Claire County Circuit Court Judge Thomas Barland
received last year's award.
The first-ever Jurist Lifetime Achievement Award will be given during
the State Bar Annual Convention in June 1998. Candidates must have
served a minimum of 12 years on the bench, demonstrated high ideals,
personal character and judicial competence; and affected the judicial
system in a unique way.
The State Bar's
Bench Bar
Committee invites members and the public to submit nominations for
awards that will honor two Wisconsin judges.
To receive nomination forms or more information about these awards,
contact Patricia Morgan at the
State Bar at (800) 444-9404, ext. 6107, or (608) 250-6107. Nominations
for both awards are due by Oct. 15.
New 920 Area Code Brings
Many Changes
Lawyers in 17 east-central and northeastern Wisconsin counties must
make a number of changes around their offices July 26 when their phone
services switch from the 414 area code to the newly created 920 area
code.
Increased demand for telecommunication services such as cellular
phones, pagers, modems, fax machines and second lines has depleted the
supply of phone numbers in the 414 area code. The Public Service
Commission devised a plan dividing the 414 area code into two segments,
with the northern segment receiving the new 920 code. The new code will
serve 1.2 million residents in an area roughly from Sheboygan to Green
Bay, including the Fox Valley, Door County and portions of Columbia,
Waukesha, Washington and Ozaukee counties. Eight Wisconsin counties,
including Milwaukee, will remain in the 414 area code.
The change will not affect communities in the 608 and 715 area codes.
Customers' seven-digit phone numbers remain the same.
During a three-month transitional phase, calls to locations within
the new area code can be completed using either the new 920 code or the
old 414 code. The "optional dialing" period ends Oct. 25 when all calls
to locations within the new area code must be dialed using 920.
As the change approaches, law offices in the new area code might want
to draw up a task checklist that should include:
- notifying customers and business associates of your new phone
numbers;
- revising checks, business cards, stationery, advertising and
promotional materials; and
- reprogramming business phone systems, automatic dialers,
speed-calling lists, computer modems, fax machines, cellular phones,
pagers and alarm systems.
Figuratively Speaking
In 1992 the percentage of law firms that offered Internet use for their
attorneys' legal research, according to a survey of 500 U.S. law firms
conducted by Chicago-Kent College of Law's Center for Law and Computers:
5
In 1995 the percentage of those same 500 firms that had come to rely
on the Internet for legal research: 77
Source: The American University Law Review, September
1996
Number of states whose prisons are operating at greater than 100
percent capacity: 35
Average percentage of their capacities at which U.S. prisons are now
operating: 114.9
Source: Syracuse Law Review, Volume 47, Number 1, 1996, pp
179-180; Alfred Blumstein's Prison Crowding
Number of lawsuits filed for lack of due process or cruel and unusual
punishment in 1975: 6,606
In 1994: 39,065
Of the 1994 total, the number filed by state prisoners under the
so-called Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871: 37,925
The number of suits filed over the course of three years by prisoner
John Robert Demos, including one against a guard who refused to call him
by his Islamic name: 184
Source: Wall Street Journal reported in the Globe and
Mail, April 26, 1995
"It has been said that while a physician saves lives, a lawyer is
responsible for the society which makes life worth saving."
-- Richard M. Nixon
Wisconsin Lawyer
