Milwaukee judges to consider prelim hearing consolidation

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Felony judges in Milwaukee are considering consolidation of preliminary hearings in response to a new law that largely gutted the value of those proceedings.

Wisconsin Act 285 takes effect Friday and allows submission of hearsay evidence to determine probable cause in charging a felony suspect, in lieu of prosecutors being forced to produce victims and witnesses at preliminary hearings.

Presiding Felony Court Judge Rick Sankovitz said the new law prompted a planned elimination of Milwaukee’s preliminary court and the potential that preliminary hearings will be either held in intake court or conducted by judges in conjunction with scheduling conferences.

About 95 percent of preliminary hearings are already waived, Sankovitz said, and allowing hearsay will make it even easier to waive those hearings and diminish the need to a full-time court to handle them.

“It’s the efficiency of not having the expense of a prelim where you organize a whole evidentiary  hearing,” he said, “only to have a person waive it.”

Felony court judges are scheduled to meet Monday to further discuss the options of consolidating preliminary hearings.

But Milwaukee criminal defense attorney Craig Mastantuono, of Mastantuono Law Office SC, said he doesn’t want the potential merger to result in a communication breakdown between parties at the outset of a case and delay a potential resolution.

He acknowledged that the hearsay law takes the teeth out of preliminary hearings as an opportunity for defendants to realize the charges against them and witnesses to the crime, but they also serve as a starting point for negotiations.

“They should find a substitution for having meaningful exchanges on the front end of cases,” Mastantuono said. “My fear is if people aren’t forced to do it through preliminary hearing dates, they’re not going to do it.”