3 challenge Hill for Municipal Court seat
Incumbent has served since 2004
Milwaukee voters will face a crowded ballot of judicial candidates in the Feb. 21 primary election.
Three lawyers are trying to unseat Municipal Court Judge Valarie Hill, who they say has rubbed many the wrong way during more than a decade on the bench.
She also happens to come up for re-election at a time of increased attention to Milwaukee Municipal Court, the fines it imposes on the city’s poor, the driver’s license suspensions and warrants that result when fines aren’t paid, and what her opponents say is its failure to routinely inform people that if they can’t pay a fine, they might be eligible for alternative sanctions.
On a personal level, Hill’s detractors say she doesn’t treat people in her courtroom with adequate respect and dignity, that her judicial demeanor can be just mean.
“People are free to have their opinions,” she said. “I try to be efficient. I start on time. I’m known as being direct and straightforward. Brusque? That’s a personal inference.”
Hill, 53, was an assistant public defender in Milwaukee, where she landed after graduating from law school at the University of Akron in Ohio. She was appointed a court commissioner in 1998 and elected to the municipal bench in 2004. She lives on the north side.
Hill said she and the two other Municipal Court judges may not always recite the language about indigency because they’re often familiar with the people coming before them and know they’re indigent or whether they are property owners.
She also said community service is not as simple or effective a solution as it sounds for many people. She said she allows people
who can’t pay fines to look for work.
“I have an expectation they’ll be personally responsible,” she said. “Sometimes we coddle people too much.”
Brian Michel, 34, lives in Airport Gardens, south of Howard Ave. He is a staff attorney at the Legal Aid Society and has worked as a volunteer prosecutor for the district attorney’s office. He said he worked on a committee with people from several agencies reviewing how Municipal Court could operate more efficiently and with more due process for the parties.
He said the Milwaukee court was not interested in the results and then announced its own “warrant withdrawal Wednesdays” program last fall without any real notice to or input from the other stakeholders.
He said that and the comments he’s heard about Hill’s treatment of people in her courtroom prompted him to run for her seat. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Notre Dame Law School, he said he brings broader experience than other candidates.
“For too long, we have seen one branch of the Municipal Court sit idle while not providing the best solutions it can for the people who need them most,” Michel said.
He said he would push for more restorative justice resolutions to the behaviors that land people in Municipal Court, to help keep them from becoming criminal defendants in Circuit Court. He and the other challengers stress that the court should not be seen as a revenue generator but as a process to help keep people on track for solid civic involvement.
Kail Decker, 33, is an assistant city attorney and has held the same position in Green Bay. He said his thousands of cases and deep familiarity with Municipal Court procedure make him the best fit for the job. He touts his work going after zombie properties and bad landlords, like Mohammad Choudry, who game the city’s fines system.
“People know I’ll work hard to get justice, to make the orders mean something,” he said. He opposes license suspensions and arrest warrants as the default sanctions. “You should save those for when you really intend to use them.”
He suggests that night and weekend hours, or additional locations, might get more people to court and cut down on the many default judgments that result when people don’t show for hearings.
If he were judge, he said, “every person would be able to walk into a respectful, reasonable environment and leave with dignity and confidence in the integrity of the court.”
Decker, a 2008 graduate of Marquette University Law School, lives in Washington Heights.
William Crawley, 30, is a 2011 graduate of Marquette’s law school and an advocate at Disability Rights Wisconsin. The east side resident has used a wheelchair since being struck by a car at age 2 in a crash that killed his mother and stepfather.
He said Hill has repeatedly failed to offer defendants before her the option of community service if they can’t afford to pay fines, which leads to driver’s license suspension and jail.
“There have been ongoing and consistent instances of Branch 1 of the Municipal Court not fulfilling this duty and imposing unnecessary penalties on those in our community least likely to be able to bear them,” his campaign website reads. “These measures only serve to create additional barriers to maintaining or finding employment, not increase a defendant’s ability to pay.”
Crowley sees the role of municipal judge as more a mediator, noting that people in that court aren’t necessarily bad people who need harsh redirection but are people who need help getting back on track. As judge, he said, he would provide “respectful, dignified ways to reach the best outcome for them and the city.”
Municipal Court judges serve four-year terms. The job pays $133,289 per year.
The top two vote-getters will advance to the April 4 general election.