Kaul defends caseload as prosecutor
Schimel says cases are too few to be experience
MADISON - As a federal prosecutor in Baltimore, Democratic candidate for attorney general Josh Kaul worked on seven trials — a number Attorney General Brad Schimel says is too few to provide enough experience to lead the state Department of Justice.
But Kaul says his experience prosecuting federal cases sometimes involving more than a dozen defendants in one of the most violent cities in the country provides him with a better background than Schimel’s to address rising opioid and meth use, among other public safety matters in Wisconsin.
The issue of experience has emerged as a flashpoint in the race between Kaul and Schimel.
Like Schimel, most cases Kaul handled did not go to trial.
“I prosecuted drug traffickers, gang members and murderers, and worked to make communities safer,” Kaul said in an Oct. 12 debate hosted by Wisconsin Public Media. “I’m proud of the work that I’ve done as a federal prosecutor and I’m happy to compare that record to your record as attorney general where on issue after issue we’ve seen failure when it comes to public safety.”
Schimel disagrees, and a spokesman suggested Kaul’s work in the trials amounted to “basic legal research” and not important work experience.
“Kaul should be embarrassed because his experience in Maryland is pathetic,” spokesman Johnny Koremenos said. “By comparison, Attorney General Schimel was the lead prosecutor in seven criminal trials as an intern in the Waukesha DA’s office for crying out loud.”
Kaul, 37, worked as an assistant U.S. attorney the District of Maryland between 2010 and 2014, when he moved back to Wisconsin to work in the Madison office of a national law firm. Before working in Maryland, Kaul worked at a Washington, D.C., law firm between 2007 and 2010, and worked as a law clerk for a U.S. Court of Appeals judge for one year after graduating law school.
It’s unclear how many cases Kaul prosecuted while working for the U.S. attorney’s office. A spokeswoman did not answer how many cases Kaul handled in Baltimore, or how many cases he has handled in private practice.
Mushtaq Gunja, a Georgetown University law professor who worked in the U.S. attorney’s office with Kaul, said Kaul’s caseload was similar to his and said he handled about 35 defendants and tried about 10 cases annually. He
said the cases often involved drug trafficking, murders of witnesses, and other crimes that made complicated cases.
Schimel, 53, was elected attorney general in 2014 after working as the district attorney in Waukesha County between 2007 and 2014. He worked as a prosecutor in that office from 1990 until 2007 when he was elected to lead it.
Koremenos said Schimel has brought more than 150 cases to trial and personally worked on 15,400 cases over his career.
Among the trials Kaul worked on involved:
❚ Matthew Ward and James Stevenson of Maryland, who were convicted in 2013 after an eight-day trial of selling large quantities of oxycodone and other kinds of prescription drugs. The drugs were obtained by paying people to get drugs from doctors through personal prescriptions. The men were sentenced to 10 and 5 years in prison, respectively.
❚ Luis Fernandez Juaregui-Madriz, an undocumented immigrant who had returned to Maryland after being deported once, was convicted for his role in obtaining and selling large amounts of heroin and cocaine out of a Maryland man’s auto body shop — a case involving 16 defendants. The group of sellers distributed more than 3.5 kilograms of cocaine and 28 grams of crack-cocaine between 2008 and 2011, according to the Capital Gazette in Annapolis.
❚ Tyrone Johniken, who was convicted in 2012 for his role in a large-scale heroin and cocaine distribution organization and the killing of a woman over a debt she owed to them. The woman also had a sexual relationship with a police officer, leading Johniken and others to believe she may provide information to the police, according to court records and the Baltimore Sun.
Gunja, who has donated $75 to Kaul’s campaign, said focusing on the number of trials, or the number of cases, is the wrong metric to use to rate a federal prosecutor because a single case can often involve many defendants and the goal is to get defendants to plead guilty to their crimes.
“The nature of federal prosecutions is so, so different than state prosecutions,” he said.