SEALED COURT RECORDS in Iron County, Wisconsin

Awhile back in our research, we came across 6 sealed court cases on the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access website, both misdemeanor and felony cases going back as far as one can go on the WCCA website. What are sealed records? Records may be sealed for a wide variety of reasons including any records that may impede a current investigation like we have recently seen in the case of the Aurora Colorado "Batman" shooter, James Holmes, psychiatric records, mistaken identity cases, confidential informant records and of course entire records may be requested sealed after an application for expungement has been granted. In Wisconsin, convictions of young persons, 25 and under can be expunged and therefore placed under seal. 

The 6 sealed court cases in Iron County can be summarised as follows:

• 1x case is clearly marked on the record as "Mistaken Identity"
• 2x cases contain no name whatsoever on the record & we presume from this that they are expunged records.
• 3x cases contain a blanked out name in the "Name" column on WCCA results but, their name remains in the "Caption" column which presumably rules out the possibility of an expunged record. Clicking on any of these 3 cases produces this result:

Before I tell you who these sealed records concern, I want to stress that it is my belief that not one of these 3 people are aware that these records or sealed nor am I implying any of these 3 are involved in anything untoward. Anyone following the case of Don Miller and aware of the judicial integrity issues involved in his case will already know that the questions raised by the sealed record discovery goes further to question Judge Patrick Madden's conduct and integrity in other cases and not the people subject of the cases. If you are new to the Don Miller case and are unaware of the issues of judicial integrity, I suggest you read "Anatomy of a Wrongful Conviction Part 1 & 2" available at the links on the right column of this blog and examine the supporting evidence provided for these documents.

It is worth mentioning that the State of Wisconsin has a very strong open records law where all public records are presumed open to examination by the public unless there is strong overriding reason for non-disclosure. This is a difficult test for the record custodian to overcome when choosing to withhold records from public inspection.

An absolute right of examination applies to Wisconsin circuit court records required to be kept in the office of the clerk of circuit court. Wis. Stat. § 59.20(3);State ex rel. Bilder v. Delavan Tp., 112 Wis. 2d 539, 551-54, 334 N.W.2d 252 (1983).The clerk must file and keep all papers properly deposited with him or her in every action or proceeding. Wis. Stat. § 59.40(2)(a); Bilder, 112 Wis. 2d at 554.

There are three exceptions to the “absolute right of examination” rule. First, documents may be closed to public inspection when a statute authorizes the sealing of otherwise public records. Second, documents may be closed to public inspection if disclosure would infringe on a constitutional right. Third, when required by the administration of justice, a circuit court may order documents or cases sealed pursuant to the court’s inherent authority to preserve and protect the exercise of its judicial function. Bilder, 112 Wis. 2d at 554-56;

In the case of the 3 sealed records, the ENTIRE record is sealed which is quite unusual. Even the decision made by the Court is sealed in the instance of these 3 cases. See the following:

However, we have been advised of no powers possessed by any judge of this state to suppress a decision from the public after it has been made available to the parties thereto. Whatever the motives of the county judge may have been, and we acknowledge that they were of the highest nature, they cannot supersede the clear public policy pronouncements of the legislature that a decision must be filed with the clerk of court and when, so filed, it is subject to examination by "any person."

While appellant argues that it is within the inherent power of a court to withhold its decision from the public while making its mandate known to the parties, we have been cited no instance of such exercise of power. While we recognize the inherent power of the courts, in many respects, goes beyond those conferred by statute, we have been unable to find, and appellant has given us, no authority in this jurisdiction to sustain his point of view that such inherent authority exists with respect to withholding a decision. Rather, we believe it an inherent obligation of a court to promptly make its decisions available to the public. We believe that the policy to be followed was properly summarized in 21 C. J. S., Courts, pp. 415, 416, sec. 223:

"Justice requires that the public shall have free access to the opinions of the courts and it is against sound public policy to prevent such access ...." While the statement appearing in Corpus Juris Secundum quoted refers to appellate courts, we see no difference between a trial court and a final appellate court in its obligation to reveal its decisions.

Id. At 312. State ex rel. Journal Co. v. County Court, 168 NW 2d 836 - Wis: Supreme Court 1969

So, we see above that refusal to even produce the decision of the Court in these 3 cases is against "sound public policy". The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ruled that both trial courts and appellate courts have an OBLIGATION to reveal its decisions. We have been denied access to any documents including the decisions in the 3 sealed cases.

Also, expungement of these records we have ruled out based on the age of the subjects of the cases and the fact that when a record is expunged, the names are completely removed/sealed from the file. While these 3 records have had the name removed from the "Name" column the name still remains in the "Caption" column.

A written records request has been made to both the Iron County Clerk of Circuit Court, Mrs. Karen Ransanici, the legal records custodian, for information on these cases. We requested that they produce either the court orders sealing the records or requested the release of the records themselves if the reasons for sealing them were not sufficient given many factors. We were provided with neither the court orders nor the records themselves.

Patrick J. Madden instead issued an order directing/ordering Clerk of Court Ransanici to essentially deny our request as the Court ordered pursuant to its "inherent powers" that the records remain sealed for all purposes.

Again, see case law above regarding failing to reveal the Courts decision pursuant to its "inherent powers". Further on the issue of "inherent powers" see the case law that follows.

In Matter of Estates of Zimmer, 442 NW 2d 578 - Wis: Court of Appeals 1989 :

The court went on to state, however, that before any question of inherent powers would even arise, the party seeking closure must "overcome the legislatively mandated policy favoring open records...." Bilder, 112 Wis. 2d at 556, 334 N.W.2d at 261.

The court then discussed the reasons advanced for closing the file in light of state statutes and other indicia of public policy favoring access and concluded that it need not decide "whether a circuit court may ever use its inherent power to seal court documents," because "Bilder has failed to overcome the legislative policy set forth in sec. 59.14 that the denial of public examination of a court record is contrary to the public policy and the public interest favoring open court records." Id. at 559, 334 N.W.2d at 262. We reach the same conclusion here. The issue of inherent powers does not arise because the strong public policy favoring access to court records has not been overcome.

"there is an absolute right to inspect a public document in the absence of specifically stated sufficient reasons to the contrary." Id., quoting 
Beckon v. Emery, 36 Wis. 2d 510 - Wis: Supreme Court 1967.

We have been given no specifically stated sufficient reasons from the records custodian nor the Court as to why the records should be or remain to be sealed that may overcome the strong public policy favoring access to the records. Therefore, they should be made available to public inspection.

As for the latest Order of the Court ordering that the records are to remain sealed for all purposes pursuant to its "inherent powers", in Zimmer the Appeals Court stated, "The issue of inherent powers does not arise because the strong public policy favoring access to court records has not been overcome."

Clerk of Circuit Court Ransanici provided us with no reasons for denial of our request only an attached Court Order from Judge Madden. As she is the legal and proper records custodian it is for her to determine whether there is sufficient reasoning in the original court order sealing the files and whether the files requested should be released for public inspection. So, we can see from the above case law that denying the request under direction of the Court's "inherent powers" without examining the other factors surrounding the sealing of the files is improper.

Download our request for the records and the Clerk of Courts response along with the Court Order issued by Patrick J. Madden.

We also sent a request to the Iron County Sheriff's Department records custodian, Sheriff Tony Furyk, for the criminal complaints relating to the sealed records. Sheriff Furyk also refused our request with no sufficient reasoning and attached the same Court Order issued in response to our request to the Clerk of Courts. However, the Order does not constrain the Sheriff, the legal custodian of records at the Sheriff's Department from releasing records he has regarding these cases. Furthermore, we responded to inform him of the following annotation under 19.35 of the Wisconsin Statutes:

Foust held that a common law categorical exception exists for records in the custody of a district attorney's office, not for records in the custody of a law enforcement agency. A sheriff's department is legally obligated to provide public access to records in its possession, which cannot be avoided by invoking a common law exception that is exclusive to the records of another custodian. That the same record was in the custody of both the law enforcement agency and the district attorney does not change the outcome. To the extent that a sheriff's department can articulate a policy reason why the public interest in disclosure is outweighed by the interest in withholding the particular record it may properly deny access.  Portage Daily Register v. Columbia Co. Sheriff's Department, 2008 WI App 30, 746 N.W.2d 525, 07-0323.

Sheriff Furyk has ignored our response.  

Also, do note that Judge Madden cc'd DA Lipske and Sheriff Furyk on his latest court order. Why? Sheriff Furyk is the legal custodian of the Sheriff Department records. Judge Madden has zero say on what records the Sheriff can and cannot release for public inspection, so, why has he cc'd him on this order? Karen Ransanici told Steve in another conversation that the Sheriff handed our request to them to deal with. Why is the Iron County Sheriff asking the court house to do his job as legal records custodian?

Download the request, response and court order for sheriff department records.

Why are we so interested in these 3 records? The first of the 3 were discovered by accident and it so happened that one of the subjects had a connection to another issue we were looking into with regards to "judicial integrity" in Iron County. When I searched every case in Iron County since the current Judge has been sitting it was interesting to find only 6 cases sealed in their entirety. 3 of which happen to deal with "exotic dancers" and the others are explained by presumed expungements and mistaken identity. The 3 unexplained all have the same common denominator.

Whilst I am not making any accusations, I am merely raising questions. A BIG question... of judicial integrity in Iron County based on what we already know and what has been revealed to us by a number of parties about the Judge's relationship with Connie Vargovich before, during and after Don's trial and his personal relationships with others he has dealt with in the course of his career as Iron County Circuit Court Judge.

Above, if you have downloaded the documents and details of our requests, you'll know the names of the subjects of the 3 unexplained sealed records which can all be confirmed by looking on WCCA for yourself. While one of the subjects is a male, another party to this case is an "exotic dancer".

See a snippet of a transcript of a conversation regarding this sealed case between DA Lipske and Stephen Williams.

Note this person had no idea his case was sealed, it is our belief the other people were not aware their cases had been sealed and closed off from public inspection.

Prior to making official records requests about the sealed records, Stephen Williams, asked Judge Madden about the sealed records on two different occasions. Many of the Judge's responses to Stephen's questions in the following May 21st, 2012 conversation were quite curious.

 

In the court order issued in response to our records request, the Judge specifically quotes the Bilder case wherein the court allowed a newspaper to intervene in a case to unseal certain records which was affirmed by the Appeals Court as well so, I find it difficult to make sense of the Judges rather dubious statements to the fact that sealed records cannot ever be opened once sealed.

Whilst there are remedies which may be pursued after a denial of an open records case such as mandamus and even the latest court order conceivably could be challenged in the Court of Appeals, we will be passing the info onto the appropriate authorities for them to look into.

Most of all, I believe this information should be brought to light to the people of Iron County for them to look at and wonder after all that has been discovered about the Judge's relationship with the woman who falsely accused Don Miller and the knowledge that he spent much of his free time partying and drinking in the taverns of Hurley by his own admission....

... if it is mere coincidence that out of 6 sealed cases in Iron County since Judge Madden was appointed that 3 of the 6 sealed cases which are unexplained all have to do with exotic dancers and/or his drinking buddies in the lower block of Hurley? Remember Mary Conley's story? If you have not heard Mary's story, please check out this radio show where Mary shares her story with regard to judicial integrity.

Coincidence? I will leave the reader to decide.