FRIEBERT RIPS BLANCHARD A NEW ONE IN BURKE CASE

By Michael Horne

Dane County District Attorney Brian Blanchard is overstepping his role in the justice system by asking Dane County Circuit Court Judge C. William Foust to order Brian Burke to do jail time for his guilty plea in the case of State of Wisconsin v. Brian B. Burke, according to a letter to the judge signed by Robert H. Friebert of Friebert, Finerty & St. John, S.C.
Burke pled guilty in the case, and a media frenzy has surrounded him since it was announced that his sentence would be home confinement.
"Burke gets to sleep in his own bed," is the way it is usually put.
Actually, there probably is not much sleeping going on in the Burke household, since home confinement does include a number of intrusions.
You might not know it, but inmates under home confinement must have a land line telephone, and must keep a log book to record calls made to the telephone by corrections officials and their equipment.
According to my sources familiar with the mechanics of home confinement, an inmate will receive about 10 - 15 calls per day -- or night. The calls never come in intervals of greater than two hours, which cannot be good for the sleep patterns of the inmates. Each time a call is generated by the corrections officials' equipment, the inmate must write down a code number issued during the call, and must record the time of the call.
The confinee must then produce the log of the calls when he or she meets with his or her corrections agent, which is a biweekly affair.
So, as you see, people domestically confined are not exactly "home free." And, if you miss a call, officials have the right to haul you in to serve hard time, which you can be assured would be the case in the event that Burke were to do so.
With that as the background, we can turn to Friebert's letter dated Friday, January 13th 2006.
He refers to a letter Blanchard sent Judge Foust asking that Burke spend his sentence in confinement.
As Friebert put it, "We received a document from Mr. Blanchard which has all of the trappings of a motion, but is not. ... this document asks the Court to make an extrajudicial pronouncement in an attempt to improperly influence a discretionary decision exercised by the executive branch of the government, in this case, the Superintendent of the Milwaukee County House of Correction."
[Blanchard, by the way, improperly calls it the "Milwaukee House of Corrections."]
Friebert goes on to the heart of the matter: "The jurisdiction of this Court ended when the Court imposed sentence. The sentence being served does not violate the sentence imposed in any respect. I am confident that it was well understood at the time of sentencing that after a person is incarcerated in a jail, it is the sheriff, or in this case, the Superintendent of the Milwaukee County House of Correction, who determines the place of confinement. Since Brian Burke does not represent any danger to the community, the Superintendent decided that home confinement was an appropriate placement."
Friebert then quotes a number of recent cases in which the Wisconsin Court of Appeals underscored the law that the judicial branch cannot interfere, directly or indirectly, with the discretion of the sheriff or the Superintendent of the Milwaukee County House of Correction in this regard.
"Yet this is exactly what the district attorney is asking this Court to do. We do not believe the Court has any authority to write letters which have the appearance of being official communications from the Court when the Court has absolutely no jurisdiction."
As any political observer knows, nothing is more jealously guarded in political circles than jurisdiction, and Blanchard's actions in stepping on another party's turf is a political -- and politically motivated -- faux pas.
Friebert says the letter from Blanchard to the judge is so unusual that "we would like to know whether the Court has ever sent a similar communication after the sheriff has made a placement decision."
Perhaps it is time that D.A. Blanchard, who, as far as vindictiveness is concerned, is acting more like D.A. Paul Bucher, bears some scrutiny. Although he has prosecuted legislators of both parties, his candidates seem hand-picked, since many other legislators have been assured that they will not be prosecuted for the same crimes charged against Burke, Foti, Chvala, Jensen, et al.
His eagerness to see Burke serve his time behind bars, as we have seen from Friebert's letter, extends beyond his authority to do so.
Finally, I guess I will have to pack up and go to Madison again soon to review the records of the State of Wisconsin Elections Board regarding its investigation of Dane County District Attorney Blanchard for using state offices for campaign purposes (sound familiar?) and for irregularities in campaign finance reporting. Although the Board decided, on a political vote, not to pursue Blanchard, the file exists, and I intend to comb through it.


Wi-Fi Plans Advance in Committee
By Michael Horne
The Milwaukee Common Council Public Works Committee has five members, but it only took two of them to advance plans for a wireless network to blanket the community. According to Randal Gschwind, the City's Chief Information Officer, "This wireless network will put Milwaukee in the forefront of new technologies in large cities in the United States, and even worldwide.
Chairman Robert Bauman and Ald. Robert W. Puente cast the two votes in favor of awarding a contract. Alderman Willie Wade was excused from the proceedings. Alderman Joe Dudzik voted against the issue, saying he needed more time to study it -- and why not, since the "term sheet" for the agreement was not prepared until January 12th. Ald. Terry Witkowski abstained, for the same reason.
Among the highlights of the agreement:
The network will be vendor-neutral and available an an equal basis to any Internet Service Provider
The city will receive a guarantee that an anchor tenant will complete and operate the network in the case of a default
A demonstration site is to be built in the first four months to prove the technology works.
That site will be located in an area from N. 10th Street to Highway 41 North, and W. Canal Street to W. Vliet Street, much of which area is in Ald. Bauman's district, and includes Marquette University.
The entire city will be built out in 18 months, and a "walled garden" of 60 websites will be available for free to anybody logging into the network.
City employees will be hired in the building of the system, the City government will receive free accounts and a priority on the network for public safety uses during emergencies.
On the money side, the City will share in the gross revenues after a start-up period of three years.
In years 4-6 the City will receive 1 per cent of wireless revenues and 1/2 per cent of non-wireless revenues. In years 7-14 of the agreement, the City will receive 3 per cent of the wireless revenues, and 1-1/2 per cent of the non wireless revenues.
The firm will also provide a one-time fixed contribution of $150,000 toward a City "Digital-Divide" fund.
The matter will come before the entire Common Council for a vote on Wednesday, January 18th.