Wisconsin has long had a tradition of open government, and we should be proud to live in a state with a cultural belief that the business of the government should be as transparent as possible. However, when we demand more transparency from our government we must remember that should we become entangled within the system, we will be required to give up more of our privacy.
Many of us have stumbled upon the Wisconsin Circuit Court Access website. This little, unassuming website has been the cause of great humiliation and personal frustration to many of this state’s citizens. For those of you who have never seen or heard of this website, let me break it down for you plain and simple: The website was built in order to give judges, prosecutors and ordinary citizens the opportunity to easily look up a person’s criminal record. By simply typing in a name, one can easily view all transgressions that a person has had against the law.
The biggest downfall of this website is that it retains the cases in which the defendant was acquitted of their crimes. While the website does note that the charges against this person were dismissed, it cannot prevent other people from passing judgments when they discover that the defendent was charged with a crime. The potential ramifications of this public record become more serious as the severity of the crime increases.
A proposed bill by Rep. Evan Goyke, D-Milwaukee, aims to alleviate the public condemnation that comes with having an innocent record on the WCCA website. While the bill is not yet in its final form, it promises to provide people declared innocent of the charges against them a purer form of justice. A person who is innocent of any crimes should never be made to suffer guilt brought on by the judgments of others for actions that they did not commit.
Put yourself in the shoes of a person who is wrongfully charged with murder. This individual will initially have to deal with shame and emotional stress after being labeled a potential murderer in front of his friends, family and community. If the prosecutor does not drop the charges, he will then be dragged through the court system and endure a preliminary hearing, an arraignment and a trial. That is, if he can manage to maintain his innocence knowing that he faces a longer sentence in jail if he does not accept a plea bargain. If this person is fortunate the system will work, and he will be found innocent of the charges brought against them.
However, even after their innocence has been declared, the battle for true justice still continues. Often it is the case that individuals wrongfully accused of crimes will need to continue to defend themselves long after their day in court.
The WCCA website is responsible for much of this undeserved suffering. When these wrongfully-accused individuals apply for jobs, the employer will likely look for a criminal record and discover that they were charged with murder. Regardless of whether or not the employer notices that they were exonerated of guilt,an endless array of judgments might fill their head. Worst of all for the wrongfully accused, their record is not just available to employers, but to anyone who may have any interest in researching them.
Between three and five million people view the WCCA website each day, and while many people who search the website are well informed about how the database works, far too many are not. The court records provide a bountiful amount of information on people both guilty and innocent including their name, date of birth, residence at the time of the crime, the day the crime was committed and the charge against them. The only difference between the guilty and the innocent is listed under the disposition category, which is written in the same font as everything else and at times does not contain the word innocent.
Lastly, a large problem with leaving the records of innocent people on the database stems from the mentality of those who search for a person’s criminal record. People are not searching for whether a person was guilty or innocent of a crime, they are searching for the crimes that an individual has been charged with.
It is all too clear that people caught in the criminal justice system carry a stigma about them both before and after they are judged by the law. If innocent people are removed from the WCCA website, they will have an easier time readjusting to the lives they used to live before society wrongly accused them.
Jared Mehre ([email protected]) is a junior majoring in political science, sociology and legal studies.
