POSTED: Monday, March 22nd, 2010 at 1:00 am

BY: dmc-admin

Case filings from Milwaukee County courts in 2009 reveal a number of interesting trends.

According to the annual report prepared by Clerk of Court John Barrett, the number of criminal cases filed is down for the third consecutive year.

In contrast, foreclosures are up for the fourth consecutive year, and appeals have skyrocketed, but the number of evictions and replevins have both dropped.

Criminal cases

The number of total criminal cases filed dropped 3.3 percent, from 62,624 in 2008 to 60, 587 in 2009.

District Attorney John T. Chisholm attributes the drop to proactive interventions by the police department in the community, leading to fewer referrals from law enforcement to his office for prosecution.

Chisholm said there has also been a significant effort to direct resources toward more violent offenders.

Finally, he noted traffic law reform enacted in 2008 as a factor in the drop. Thousands of operating after revocation cases that would once have been handled in the criminal courts are now handled civilly.

There was also a significant drop in the number of charges filed for escape, from 146 in 2008 to only 46 in 2009.

Chisholm attributed some of the drop to the closing of the Huber facility in 2009. Prior to that, he noted that the bulk of the escape charges were not for violent escapes, but failures to return to the Huber facility.

Despite the drop in cases, Chisholm said his prosecutors remain busy, due to the increase in appeals.

“We spend a great deal more time on appeals and postconviction matters in homicide and sexual assault cases. The sentences are so consequential, everything gets appealed,” he said. “There is a ‘what have you got to lose’ mentality.”

Appeals

Chisholm’s comments regarding appellate work are borne out by the report. The number of appeals skyrocketed from 708 in 2008 to 878 in 2009, a 24 percent increase.

Court of Appeals Judge Joan Kessler, who is co-chair of the Milwaukee Bar Association’s Appellate Committee, said that the court’s workload “is definitely going up.”

She speculated that the increase may be due to the greater number of parties representing themselves pro se.

Self-represented litigants are more likely to appeal based on findings of fact, despite the highly deferential standard of review that applies in such appeals.

Kessler also said that many appeals are brought by prisoners.

“They have lost their direct appeals, and their lawyers have been dismissed, but they still have a long time to serve,” Kessler said. “So they bring new petitions.”

Debt collection

As might be expected in this economy, the number of foreclosure actions rose for the fourth consecutive year, from 6,461 in 2008 to 7,175 in 2009, an 11 percent increase.

However, replevins and evictions were both down. Evictions fell from 12,443 in 2008 to 11,852 in 2009; replevins fell from 3,291 in 2008 to 2,564 in 2009.

The number of replevin actions filed has fallen in each of the last three years, since peaking at 5,897 in 2006.

Thomas Cannon, executive director of the Legal Aid Society of Milwaukee, said the drop is puzzling, but speculated that consumers are simply buying fewer durable goods.

“If people are not buying as much, there is less to repossess,” he noted.

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