FINES CAN'T GO TO NONPROFIT AND ANTI-CRIME GROUPS

Dozens of nonprofit and anti-crime organizations around Wisconsin that
rely on court-imposed fines for much of their bread and butter will
lose hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding because of a law
enacted in March.

The law prohibits prosecutors and judges from requiring defendants to
pay fines to crime-prevention organizations such as DARE (Drug Abuse
Resistance Education) and Crime Stoppers. Other organizations,
including those helping domestic-violence victims and young people at
risk of committing crimes, will also feel the pinch.

The Legislature passed the ban after the Wisconsin State Journal
revealed in 2003 that former Outagamie County District Attorney Vince
Biskupic had struck secret deals with criminal defendants allowing
them to avoid prosecution if they donated money to favored groups.

Jim Rider, treasurer of the Crawford County Children 's Advisory
Board, said the court-ordered money will be sorely missed. His
organization, based in Prairie du Chien, received $8,869 this year and
$9,281 in 2007 for programs benefitting troubled youth in the
southwestern Wisconsin county. The Children 's Advisory Board has used
the funding to pay for scholarships, skateboard ramps and, recently, a
post-prom party.

The court-ordered fines constituted at least half of the money the
group raised, Rider said. "It was a major source of funding, so we 're
going to have to find another source of funding. It 'll be tough to
replace. "

The problem is less pronounced for other groups, for whom the money
made up a smaller part of their budgets.

Court Official Pleased

While the fines have been used to fund some worthy programs, a top
state court official said she 's happy to see the ban.

"I wanted to get rid of it 15 years ago, " said Sheryl Gervasi, deputy
director of the Wisconsin Court System, who said the "potential for
abuse " under the system is too great.

In the early 1990s, the state court system studied the practice of
allowing defendants in civil and criminal cases face lesser penalties
if they contributed to crime-prevention organizations, Gervasi said.
The results were disturbing.

"Police officers ... were accepting money on the road in lieu of
(writing) a ticket, " Gervasi said.

The study found that judges, prosecutors and the police used the
donations to support groups the officials favored. In some cases,
judges even served on the boards of the groups that got the funding,
which she called "not permissible. "

"You can 't just pick out some good organization and start directing
money to them, " Gervasi said.

Dane County Circuit Judge Daniel Moeser is one of the judges who 's
pushed to eliminate the program since the 1990s. During his term as
chief judge for the district including Dane County, Moeser along with
the nine other chief judges asked the Legislature to ban the practice.

"The main reason the chief judges and the Dane County judges have not
been in favor of crime-prevention organizations is we felt that people
with money got treated differently than people without money, " Moeser
said.

Moeser said many of the programs were "well-intended and did a good
job, " but he added there were "inherent potential problems when money
is spent to affect charges and affect dispositions. "

Because of such concerns, the Legislature voted to ban prosecutors
from reducing or dismissing charges in exchange for defendants
donating to such organizations. The law, which took effect in 2000,
also required groups to report how they used the funds.

Biskupic got around the ban, however, by promising not to even file
charges if defendants donated money to pet projects, including a fund
he administered. In one secret deal identified by the State Journal, a
prominent Green Bay business owner who denied committing any crime
agreed to donate $8,000 to an agency for domestic violence victims to
avoid criminal charges.

Biskupic, who was Outagamie County 's top prosecutor for eight years,
received a warning from the state Ethics Board for improperly using
his public position to benefit the fund he controlled.

Some Won't Like It

The new law bans prosecutors from striking the types of deals Biskupic
made. It also slams the door on judges who have been imposing such
donations as a part of a sentence. In a letter to judges, A. John
Voelker, the director of the state court system, acknowledged the
change won 't be popular with everyone.

"Although the organizations that receive the funds are often valuable
to the community, this funding mechanism creates the potential for
inappropriate prosecutorial charging decisions, the appearance of
fundraising or favoritism by the judges and a general perception by
the public that favorable outcomes in criminal cases can be bought by
defendants who can afford them, " Voelker said.

Gervasi said judges in most circuit courts in Wisconsin already had
stopped ordering the payments, including those in Dane County.

A snapshot of the accounts maintained by the state court system in
late March showed that organizations in 27 of the state 's 72 counties
still had $179,457 waiting to be disbursed, along with $335,150 in
fines that were imposed but still hadn 't been paid.

The largest recipient is the Howard L. Fuller Education Foundation in
Milwaukee, which is slated to get $91,509 from Milwaukee County
Circuit Court fines. The foundation offers services to children,
including an Operation Fresh Start program and the 3rd District
Community Justice Court, whose mission is to "reduce crime by
providing the highest quality of human services. "