Aggressively Defending My Clients Since 1990

In The News

The work that I’ve done to protect my client’s rights has not gone unnoticed. Below are a few of the many articles written about my representation and interviews I’ve given about my clients.

Interview

Lawyer for Jeffrey Dahmer Survivor Says Client Never Recovered After Escaping the Serial Killer

https://www.etonline.com/lawyer-for-jeffrey-dahmer-survivor-says-client-never-recovered-after-escaping-the-serial-killer

Articles

State V. Tracy Edwards

Case Conclusion Date: January 1, 2012

Description: Tracy Edwards was the man who escaped Jeffrey Dahmer’s house, saving himself from death. He helped police find Dahmer’s house and evidence of his crimes. Tracy Edwards was later charged with homicide of Jonny Jordan 20 years later. Click on this link to find the People article and learn more about the case. You can also find the ABC News story by following this link.

State v. Michael Henderson and Olando Maclin

Case Conclusion Date: January 1, 2010

Description: Michael Henderson, 41, and Olando Maclin, 53, contend that Wisconsin’s constitution, which prohibits felons from voting until their sentences – including probation and payment of fines and costs – have been completed, is itself unconstitutional because the effect of the ban is to disproportionately keep African Americans like themselves from the polls.  Read about the case in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel at https://archive.jsonline.com/news/crime/105317088.html or the Chicago Defender at https://chicagodefender.com/wis-lawyer-vote-fraud-laws-stacked-against-blacks/  There is a direct link to Jim Crow laws and the origins of banning felons from voting.   I filed a 58-page, single-spaced legal brief that cites hundreds of historical, legal and statistical sources that recounted  the adoption of both the U.S. and Wisconsin Constitutions, the 14th, 15th and 24th amendments and the Voting Rights Act and how felon disenfranchisement violates those laws. It explains how blacks are disproportionately charged, convicted and imprisoned in America, and argues that felon disenfranchisement, therefore, should be overturned. I noted, for instance, that there are more than 5 million, up from 1.6 million just 25 years ago, on probation or parole in the United States. Combine that with the prison and jail population and it means 1 in every 31 adults, or 3.2%, is under some form of correctional control. For blacks, it’s 1 in 11, and even higher in some central city neighborhoods. Link to my brief at http://www.jsonline.com/news/crime/105317088.html.

Lawyer: Police abusing ‘stop and frisk”

http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/blogs/proof-and-hearsay/2016/12/06/lawyer-police-abusing-stop-and-frisk/95005266/

Katherine M. Halopka-Ivery and Linda M. Halopka-Ivery v. Scott Walker et al

Case Conclusion Date: April 16, 2014

Description: Clients, Katherine Halopka-Ivery and Linda Halopka-Ivery, brought this action 42 U.S.C. § 1983; U.S. Constitution Amend (s). I and XIV, Sec. 1 to challenge the validity under the United States Constitution and federal law of Wisconsin Constitution Article XIII, § 13 challenging Wisconsin’s same sex marriage ban. This challenge is based on, to use the words of former Governor Lee Dreyfus, the “fundamental Republican principle that government should have a very restricted involvement in people’s private and personal lives.”

As the United States Supreme Court did in United States v. Windsor, this suit asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court to recognize that Wisconsin’s same sex marriage ban imposed a disadvantage, a separate status, and so a stigma upon all who enter into same-sex marriages. As such Wisconsin’s parallel civil marriage and domestic partnership structure, providing two distinct labels for opposite-sex couples and same-sex couples, violates the equal protection clause since history and the Constitution teach us that “separate is not equal.”  The brief for this case is available at http://www.scribd.com/doc/218730633/Wisconsin-Supreme-Court-Petition-for-Declaratory-Injunctive-Relief

A Lesbian Couple Fights For Marriage Equality In The Wisconsin Supreme Court

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/21/wisconsin-marriage-equality_n_5185412.html

State V. Universal Allah

Case Conclusion Date: November 1, 2014

Description:  The legal issue in this very emotional case is the proper criminal sentence for a person who has no prior juvenile or adult record, has a stable family background and excellent work record, who has a strong commitment to pro-social youth building in our community, who is the unsophisticated co-defendant and is recruited by more sophisticated defendant, and there is no indication the defendant understood the complexity of the offense, but helped rob someone of a Lipinski Stradivarius worth about 5 million dollars.

You can read about the case from the Associated Press at https://apnews.com/article/8adbcd155bc34f1b87a4415f4ce9e173 and was the subject of a documentary at the Milwaukee Film Festival at https://filmthreat.com/reviews/plucked/

Interestingly, looking at how other Wisconsin judges have sentenced defendants convicted of robbery, the value of the loss was only used by Wisconsin judges 20% of the time in deciding whether a robbery defendant should go to prison. Steven J. Semmann, “Three Critical Sentencing Elements Reduce Recidivism: A Comparison between Robbers and Other Offenders (Wisconsin Sentencing Commission April 2006).  The three most critical factors used by Wisconsin judges in deciding whether a robbery defendant should receive a prison sentence were: prior offense(s) similar to current offense (used 95.8%); prior felonies (used 85.4%) and prior misdemeanors (used 83.3%).  Most importantly many studies and even prosecutors now admit that it is a waste of precious tax dollars to send a low level defendant like this to prison.  It is also incredibly expensive.  In order to provide a more complete accounting of the costs of imprisonment, researchers from the Vera Institute of Justice collected and analyzed data from forty states (including Wisconsin).

Their findings were published in the Federal Sentencing Reporter at 25 Fed. Sent. Rep. 68 (2012).  In calculating average cost per inmate, the Vera researchers found Wisconsin imprisonment cost the state’s taxpayers $37,994 a year!  Given these factors it is a waste of tax dollars to send a person with this background to prison.  There are other more effective ways to sentence this type of defendant.

Right in between the photos of Jennifer Lawrence in Vanity Fair is an article mainly about the criminal master mind of the robbery, Salah Salahadyn, who has 19 total adult arrests, 4 juvenile arrests, 6 misdemeanor convictions and 4 felony convictions and goes on to mention my client, Universal Allah, and his role in the stealing of the Lipinski Stradivarius. http://www.vanityfair.com/society/2014/11/stradivarius-violin-crime-milwaukee

 

Journal Sentinel article detailing release of former suspect in Cudahy murder
Continuation of article detailing release of Cudahy murder suspect

 

Journal Sentinel article detailing appeal for new judge in murder case