Supreme Court suspends Oconto County commissioner (UPDATE)

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MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The state Supreme Court has suspended a county court commissioner for investigating a case on his own and lying to the litigants.

The justices decided unanimously on Friday to suspend Oconto County Court Commissioner Frank Calvert for 15 days.

The Wisconsin Judicial Commission, which regulates the state’s judges, filed a complaint against Calvert in September last year following more than a year of investigation.

The commission alleged that Calvert had violated the state’s code of judicial conduct by independently investigating the facts in a case and then engaging in ex parte communications that were related to the case.

Calvert in September 2015 received and reviewed petitions seeking a harassment injunction and temporary restraining order in an Oconto County case involving feuding neighbors, according to the complaint.

Going beyond a mere review of the petitions, Calvert consulted case files involving both the same parties and similar disputes and spoke with the city of Oconto police chief about the case, according to the complaint. Lawyers for the feuding neighbors were neither present during that conversation nor received advance notice of it, according to the commission.

Three Court of Appeals judges, Brian Blanchard, Lisa Stark and Timothy Dugan, were appointed to a panel to review the matter and make recommendations to the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Calvert did not file an answer to the complaint, and the commission made a motion calling on the panel to find him in default. Calvert did not contest the motion. The panel then found him in default and decided to consider the allegations in the complaint as being true. At the same time, the panel called on the parties to provide a brief explaining what sort of disciplinary measures ought to be imposed.

Calvert had contended that he deserved only a reprimand, noting among other things that the parties in the case had not asked for the matter to be reviewed by a circuit court judge. He also contended that a suspension would have a significant effect on the Oconto County Circuit Court’s caseload, noting that about only one percent of his caseload involves injunctions and restraining orders and that he handles mostly family, traffic and small-claims cases.

The commission, on the other hand, contended that Calvert should either be reprimanded or suspended for a short period of time, nothing that there had been no continued pattern of misconduct.

The panel recommended in March that the justices suspend Calvert without pay for at least five days and no more than 15 days. The justices have reviewed the panel’s decision and are scheduled to release a decision in the matter on Friday.

Calvert has been court commissioner for Oconto County for nearly 20 years. He has not previously been disciplined by the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Calvert earned his law degree from DeKalb, Illinois-based Northern Illinois University Law School in 1988 and has been admitted to practice law in Wisconsin since 1990.

– The Associated Press contributed to this article Follow @erikastrebel