Criminal Law, Corrections, and Courts

The memorandum describes restrictions imposed on sex offenders, such as limits on where they may live, where they may go, and what jobs they may hold. It also addresses requirements applicable to sex offenders in Wisconsin, such as global positioning system monitoring and reporting to the Wisconsin Sex Offender Registry.

Although community members often object when a sex offender moves in nearby, a sex offender may live in any location unless there is a law, ordinance, or rule that specifically prohibits it. State laws, municipal ordinances, and conditions the Department of Corrections imposes on individual sex offenders do limit where sex offenders may live. However, whether a particular sex offender may live in a location largely depends on the category of offender and the community where the offender resides.

A judge may order that court records relating to a person’s conviction be expunged, or removed, if the person meets certain eligibility requirements and successfully completes his or her sentence. An expungement does not reverse or set aside the conviction; it merely removes all records relating to the conviction from records maintained by the court system. This issue brief describes the eligibility criteria for expungement of an adult’s criminal record, the effects of expungement, and some of the limits on the effects of expungement under current law.

Under the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, citizens have the right to be protected against unlawful searches and seizures. One of the rules under the Fourth Amendment that safeguards these protections is the knock-and-announce rule, which requires that law enforcement announce its presence before forcibly entering a person’s dwelling to conduct a search. However, the majority of jurisdictions have created exceptions to this rule, one of which is the no-knock search warrant.

This information memorandum describes the Fourth Amendment constitutional protections applicable to no-knock search warrants, how no-knock search warrants are treated in other states, and current legislative efforts to restrict the use of no-knock search warrants.

2019 Enrolled Joint Resolution 3 (the proposed victims’ rights constitutional amendment) amends Wis. Const. art. I, s. 9m, on second consideration. Commonly referred to as “Marsy’s Law,” the proposed victims’ rights constitutional amendment is part of the nationwide campaign, “Marsy’s Law for All,” which advocates for the enumeration of 19 model victim rights in all 50 state constitutions and eventually the U.S. Constitution. The proposed victims’ rights constitutional amendment is the second of two successive resolutions proposing to amend Wis. Const. art. I, s. 9m, that have been adopted by the Legislature. It will be submitted to the people for ratification on the spring ballot on April 7, 2020.

This information memorandum provides an overview of crime victims’ rights under current law and the proposed crime victims’ rights constitutional amendment.

Recent events involving alleged incidents of excessive force by law enforcement have generated legislative interest in state and local policing and the ways in which law enforcement use of force is governed in Wisconsin. This information memorandum describes the sources of authority governing law enforcement use of force, as well as the potential consequences for an officer in employee discipline, civil, and criminal contexts, depending on the circumstances surrounding, and the nature of, the officer’s use of force.

This issue brief addresses public access to Wisconsin circuit court records and explains which materials are available for public view online and in person, and describes some of the limits on public access to circuit court records.

In 1909, the State of Wisconsin officially authorized a sheriff or other local officer to remove and care for a horse or other animal that was found to be cruelly exposed to the weather, starved, neglected, or abandoned.

The animal cruelty laws have been revised and refined since that time, but the general framework of local enforcement of the state statutes remains in place. This memorandum briefly describes the current animal mistreatment provisions and the structure of local enforcement with state assistance.