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John Chisholm, Milwaukee DA, who released suspect Waukesha before the tragedy says it was the result of human error by an overworked employee


An assistant prosecutor assigned to the domestic violence case against Brooks is on grand jury and nearly two dozen felony cases as she reviews Brooks’ most recently posted bail, was $500, in connection with an allegation of reckless endangerment, Chisholm said. The unidentified assistant district attorney, he added, who is overwhelmed with cases, has decided to double the bail amount to $1,000.

Waukesha celebrated a moment of silence on Sunday, a week after a man plowed a car through the Christmas parade

The assistant district attorney’s mistake, he said, was that she didn’t have access to a risk assessment that was important to Brooks because it hadn’t been uploaded to the office’s records management system.

Chisholm, who has long championed efforts to reduce mass incarceration by using discretion left to prosecutors, said a higher cash bail should have been offered to Brooks and error “sets a chain of events leading to a tragedy.”

“I put the finger on myself and that’s my duty, it’s my responsibility,” Chisholm said. He added that his office will use a process called key event review to learn from the flaws in the case through an ongoing practice of looking at causes, successes and failures. failure of an incident.

When running for office in 2006, the district attorney committed to a program that sought to connect individuals with low-level charges with services that matched their assessed risk and redirect those with low-level charges. identified as high-risk, such as violent offenders. Chisholm said Thursday that the system was in place when Brooks was released and “should have been followed.”

“There was a public safety assessment that was done describing this situation as a high-risk situation. Our default position in this case due to Wisconsin law is that we recommend the amount of money. higher side,” he said, describing what should have happened in Brooks’ case.

The suspect was released on bail on two charges of violence

Brooks, the sole suspect in the Waukesha tragedy, was released on bail on two separate charges of violence, including using a car to run over a woman as she was walking through a gas station parking lot, according to the criminal complaint. The woman told authorities she was the mother of his child, according to the criminal complaint.
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Brooks faces five charges in connection with the incident, including domestic abuse, and is also charged with jumping bail because he was released on bail in connection with a separate incident in July 2020. court data said. In the 2020 incident, Brooks was charged with firing a handgun during an argument and charged with two counts of reckless endangerment of second-degree safety while using a dangerous weapon and one count of felony assault. possession of a gun due to a felony.

The bail was originally set at $10,000 in that case, but because Brooks requested an expedited jury trial – which could not be met – the bail was reduced. 500 dollars left. He was later released on bail in that case on February 21, the district attorney’s office said.

Separately, Brooks pleaded guilty to statutory sexual solicitation in Nevada in November 2006, according to court records, and is a registered sex offender in that state.

Hours before Brooks drove his SUV through the Waukesha parade, he was involved in a disturbance in his home and left the scene, according to Waukesha Police Chief Dan Thompson.

Chisholm previously said his office was conducting an “internal review of the recent bail decision” related to the domestic violence case in early November.

DA says his office is ‘overcrowded’ with cases

Chisholm, who took office in 2007, has said his office should focus on stopping the violent in the system and the nonviolent – an approach that is notably in line with the effort. national “guarantee reform”.

bail reform for the purpose of limiting or eliminating the guarantee for people in prison awaiting trial if they are charged with misdemeanor or nonviolent charges. The aim is to make the system fairer for those who cannot pay their bonds.
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Law enforcement leaders have targeted bail reform efforts as a contributing factor to the rise in violent crime rates, however, data shows only a small percentage of them The defendant was released on bail for a violent crime.

A 2020 Loyola University Chicago research found that 97% of defendants released before trial in Cook County were not charged with a new violent crime, based on court data from 2017 to 2019.

Jody Armor, a law professor at the University of Southern California, told CNN: “You can’t put a cash bail for violent crimes for one thing, because bail mainly affects people who commit illegal crimes. low-level violence. summer.

Going forward, Chisholm said on Thursday, there should be an “honest assessment” of the purpose of the bail. The district attorney said he opposes the cash bail because it “doesn’t do a good job of assessing the risk.”

“That’s not to say I don’t think some people need to be detained until their case is heard. That’s called a preventive detention framework. We have a statute that allows this. That is simply not possible,” he added.

Across the country, prosecutors have been challenged to navigate a criminal justice system that has been largely disrupted by the pandemic and tasked with minimizing the risk of exposure to Covid-19 when defendants to court and to prison.

Chisholm said during a meeting Thursday that his office and the system are “overburdened” and has lost six assistant district attorneys since 2018, including two in the domestic violence unit, due to Federal funding is cut.

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“We usually bring about 500 issues before a jury or trial court each year. Because of the pandemic, we’ve had to limit some issues and that affects other departments,” Chisholm said. of the system”.

The county’s Chief Justice, Mary Triggiano, said during the meeting that the county has a backlog of 1,600 felony cases and 3,100 misdemeanor cases, which caused Brooks’ bail to be lowered to $500 earlier this year. regarding the case of 2020.

Chisholm said while not defending Brooks’ low bail, the assistant district attorney assigned to his case did not have much time to make a decision.

“It puts it in context when you’re dealing with high volume analytics and trying to sort out what the most serious breach is, get the case into the system and move on to the next one, sometimes the error is there. could happen,” he added.

The district attorney’s office earlier said in a statement that the state’s bail request in Brooks’ case was “inconsistent with the nature of the recent and pending charges” against with him.

“The bail request in this case is inconsistent with the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office’s approach to matters involving violent crime, nor is it consistent with the defendant’s prior risk assessment when establishing the guarantee,” the office’s statement read.

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