Section III: It’s Too Scary

Why the Supreme Court at All Costs Cannot Allow the Public to Know What Actually Occurred in the Raisbeck Prosecution.

The prosecution of seventeen-year-old Adam Raisbeck for a non-drinking traffic fatality during Labor Day weekend of 2001 received considerable notoriety in the Dane County press.  The case is known foremost for an in-court outburst of defense attorney Joseph Sommers wherein he told the judge that he was running a “kangaroo court.”  Raisbeck was acquitted.  However, the Wisconsin Supreme Court and its in-house law firm OLR committed itself to suppressing the facts behind the prosecution, as well as to discrediting Sommers.  The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s efforts have been assisted by the apparent indifference of their bipartisan allies in the legal, political and media establishment.  Apparently, at all costs, what is outlined below, the public cannot know.  Why? It’s too scary.

1- The prosecution of Adam Raisbeck was knowingly commenced on a fraudulent basis.

2- The lead partner of the civil law firm, i.e. Hausmann-McNally, that would have benefitted from Raisbeck’s conviction, had been federally convicted shortly prior for fixing SSI cases.

3- The prosecutor in Raisbeck, ADA Paul Humphrey, has been involved in a number of illegitimate prosecutions that benefitted well-connected individuals financially, including a Dane County State Senator.

4- Dane County then-DA Brian Blanchard is directly implicated in Raisbeck.  Brian Blanchard now sits on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals.

5- Judge Paul Higginbotham also sits on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals.  In Raisbeck, Judge Higginbotham halted proceedings half-way on the issue of prosecutorial misconduct, after Blanchard directly intervened in the case.  Higginbotham then applied to the Court of Appeals.  Before the proceedings were halted, Judge Higginbotham made specific findings related to prosecutorial misconduct for the DA’s Office falsifying on the availability of evidence.

6- The evidence in question would eventually lead to Dane County DA’s Office’s expert, Robert Krenz, conceding that this evidence proved that ADA Humphrey utilized evidence invalid to a scientific certainty to commence the prosecution, and that Krenz told Humphrey this during the relevant time period.

7- Between when Judge Higginbotham applied to the Court of Appeals and before he was appointed to the Court of Appeals, he reversed his position in part and ordered that the Dane County DA’s Office directly respond to numerous instances where evidence had been submitted substantiating misconduct.  Blanchard’s DA’s Office refused to comply.  After Judge Higginbotham was appointed to the Court of Appeals by Gov. James Doyle, he let the matter drop.

8- After Judge Higginbotham joined the Court of Appeals, he got a special order from Wisconsin Supreme Court Shirley Abrahamson to revisit the Raisbeck case.  Judge Higginbotham then took away his prior findings of prosecutorial misconduct/ falsification.  He took the extra step of falsely claiming that no such findings had ever been made.

9- Ten days after Judge Higginbotham’s falsification of the record to the benefit of the Dane County DA’s Office, evidence of what had taken place was outlined and provided to both Chief Justice Abrahamson and Gov. James Doyle.  Neither acted.

10- Post-Raisbeck, the investigation into whether the Dane County DA’s Office’s expert Robert Krenz conspired and committed perjury on behalf of the Dane County DA’s Office was assigned by the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s in-house law firm OLR to an attorney in an existing business relationship with Krenz.

11- Robert Krenz’s attorney was Michael Crooks, the son of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Patrick Crooks.  Michael Crooks later made threats of utilizing criminal, civil and OLR actions to prevent the public from being informed to what a judge testified to under oath in regard to the evidence that Crooks’ client, Krenz, lied under oath for the DA’s Office.

12- Atty. Crooks’ threatening letters were provided directly to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.  Neither Justice Crooks nor any of his fellow justices considered it to be a conflict for Justice Crooks to remain on the OLR proceeding related to Raisbeck.

13- The misconduct in Raisbeck also included a shocking aspect where ADA Humphrey utilized a false affidavit, a fraudulent warrant, and numerous falsified subpoenas in an effort to harass a teenage boy into committing perjury for Humphrey’s benefit.  The harassment culminated with the boy being told that his options were to testify as desired, or stay in jail.

If one reads Chief Justice Abrahamson’s opinion or Justice Prosser’s dissent of March 30, 2012 on the OLR cases related to Raisbeck, one will have little idea of the above outlined facts.