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Remember when Republicans were so relentlessly tough on crime they ended up wrecking U.S. criminal justice by creating a racially biased system of mass incarceration of African Americans, Latinos and other minorities?
Now there’s a companion problem in the other direction by Republicans who are soft on crime, especially the crimes they commit.
Just as harsh laws were passed by Republicans so they could publicly posture as tough on crime (and racial minorities), the mushy laws advocated by soft-on-crime Republicans serve a very specific political purpose.
Wisconsin legislative Republicans want to clamp down on state prosecutors to prevent them from investigating crimes by certain people they know very well who have been suspected of violating the law.
Specifically, they want to make it more difficult for prosecutors to investigate Gov. Scott Walker and legislative Republicans for any crimes they’re suspected of committing.
But, of course, legislators can’t just pass a law listing the names of the political pals they want to forbid law enforcement from investigating.
Instead, they’re trying to completely rewrite a law that has existed since before Wisconsin statehood allowing prosecutors to conduct secret John Doe investigations overseen by judges to determine whether crimes have been committed. Prosecutors use the proceedings to subpoena records and compel witnesses to testify under oath.
The law is Wisconsin’s alternative to grand juries, which are more commonly used in other states. Grand juries have been criticized because they only present the prosecutor’s side of a case to a jury with no defense.
A familiar cliché in criminal justice is that a prosecutor can get a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich.
John Doe Investigations Couldn’t Look into Political Crimes
Since John Doe investigations have been around since before Wisconsin was a state and the most common alternative raises questions of fairness, people might wonder why Republicans would feel compelled to try to eviscerate the law now.
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The most obvious reason is exactly the reason this governor and this Legislature should not be allowed to rewrite the law. Walker and current Republican legislators for months have been the subjects of a John Doe investigation into possible criminal violations of campaign finance laws.
And you’d never guess what crimes Republicans would no longer permit prosecutors to investigate using John Doe proceedings. That’s right, campaign finance law violations, misconduct in public office, perjury and violations of state ethics laws covering public officials.
Perhaps surprisingly, those aren’t the only crimes Republicans don’t want prosecutors to investigate with John Does. Others include identity theft, mortgage fraud, dealing small amounts of heroin and cocaine and thefts that could reach millions of dollars.
Either Republicans just tossed those in to cover up their real political agenda or the governor and his legislative colleagues have been up to a lot more bad stuff we don’t know about yet.
The best argument for insisting politicians keep their hands off the John Doe law is just how overwhelmingly successful the law has been in recent years in exposing and prosecuting public corruption.
Of course, that’s also exactly the reason Republicans want to destroy the law.
The three-year investigation into Walker’s office as Milwaukee County executive ended in 2013 convicting six of Walker’s political associates, including three of his top staff. His deputy chief of staff, sentenced to two years to prison, and another political appointee stole nearly $75,000 intended to benefit families of wounded and dead war veterans.
In the early 2000s, prosecution for widespread use of tax-paid legislative staff on political campaigns criminally convicted five state legislators and four aides in both parties. It ended the careers of a Democratic candidate for attorney general and both the Assembly’s Republican speaker and the state Senate’s Democratic majority leader.
The current John Doe, coordinated by five prosecutors from both political parties, targets campaign funding laundered through Wisconsin Club for Growth that enabled contributors of millions of dollars to Walker and legislative Republicans to hide their identities and the size of their contributions.
Although legal tactics by Walker’s supporters have stalled that investigation, it deals with the important public issue of voters knowing who is buying their public officials.
Even if there were a good reason to rewrite the John Doe law regarding political corruption — which there isn’t—it certainly should not be done by a single political party, the Republican Party, in total control of both the governor’s office and the Legislature.
Especially not this governor and this Legislature, who have faced criminal investigations themselves and have played fast and loose with laws they’ve passed that repeatedly have been blocked and overturned by courts as unconstitutional.
There is a desperate need for reform in today’s criminal justice system. It is a system fraught with inequities and injustices based on race, wealth and status in society.
But decriminalizing public corruption by public officials should never be high on our list of priorities.
