Wisconsin Supreme Court suspends Dane County judge who left court to arrest a hospitalized defendant
Great scott--she is a loser!!
Wisconsin Supreme Court suspends Dane County judge wShho left court to arrest a hospitalized defendant
The Wisconsin Supreme Court has suspended Dane County Circuit Court Judge Ellen Berz for a week starting in June in response to her leaving court to try to arrest a hospitalized defendant and getting into an argument with a different defendant in another case.
https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/wisconsin-supreme-court-suspends-dane-county-judge-who-left-court-to-arrest-a-hospitalized-defendant/
Associated Press May 27, 2025
The Wisconsin State Capitol and Dane County Courthouse are seen on April 21, 2022. The Wisconsin Supreme Court on May 27, 2025, suspended Dane County Judge Ellen Berz for a week in response to a complaint filed by the Wisconsin Judicial Commission. (Credit: PBS Wisconsin)
By Todd Richmond, AP
MADISON, Wis. (AP) —.............................
According to the complaint, Berz was presiding over an operating-while-intoxicated case in December 2021. The defendant didn’t show up in court on the day the trial was set to begin. His attorney told Berz that the defendant had been admitted to a hospital.
Berz had a staff member investigate and learned that he was in a Sun Prairie emergency room. The judge ordered her bailiff to go arrest him, but was told the bailiff couldn’t leave the courthouse. She declared that she would retrieve the defendant herself, and if something happened to her, people would hear about it on the news, according to the complaint. She then left court and began driving to the emergency room with the defendant’s attorney in the passenger seat, the complaint says. No prosecutor was present in the vehicle.
She eventually turned around after the defense attorney warned her that traveling to the hospital was a bad idea because she was supposed to be the neutral decision-maker in the case, according to the complaint. She went back into court and issued a warrant for the defendant’s arrest.................
Link to tweet
Danielle DuClos @danielle_duclos
·
Nov 14, 2024
New from @CapTimes
: A Dane County judge facing rare scrutiny from Wisconsin's judicial accountability body is also routinely targeted for removal from cases.
Judge Ellen Berz leads her colleagues by 100s of substitution requests.
https://captimes.com/news/attorneys-don-t-want-dane-county-judge-ellen-berz-to-hear-their-cases/article_a5c23a4a-a202-11ef-8854-f7c8a64aded8.html
Attorneys have sought to remove Circuit Court Judge Ellen Berz from handling their cases more than any other Dane County judge since 2020. They have petitioned to replace Berz with a different judge over 420 times, leading her 16 colleagues by hundreds of requests.
AMBER ARNOLD/WISCONSIN STATE JOURNAL
A Dane County judge facing rare scrutiny from court authorities over reported misconduct is also routinely targeted for removal from cases, according to a Cap Times analysis of court records.
...................
Judge Nicholas McNamara received the second most with 185 requests for substitution during the same period. Most county judges had fewer than 100.
Substitution requests are a telling, although imperfect, measure of how litigants feel about judges in Wisconsin's court system where accountability is rudimentary compared to other states, according to Marquette University law professor Chad Oldfather.
In October, Berz became the subject of a bizarre misconduct complaint from the Wisconsin Judicial Commission that could lead to discipline by the state Supreme Court....................
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