MILWAUKEE (Legal Newsline) - County District Attorney John Chisholm is facing criticism over his advocacy for bail reform following multiple deaths in Waukesha's Christmas parade on Sunday.
Chisholm, first elected in 2007, was an early advocate for a policy aimed at keeping low risk offenders out of jail because they cannot afford to post bond.
Critics are drawing links between the release of accused multiple murderer Darrell Brooks late last week and a policy that Chisholm has adopted along with other prosecutors in Chicago, New York, San Francisco and elsewhere.
But Chisholm already had few friends among Republicans in Wisconsin and beyond who remember him as the main driver of five years of investigations into the financing of former Gov. Scott Walker’s 2010 election and the 2012 recall vote.
Sunday’s massacre that left five dead and dozens injured has once again focused attention on 58-year-old Chisholm and bail reform.
While critics decry the policy, others are cautioning against jumping to conclusions, arguing it is not clear yet how the 39-year-old accused Brooks was allowed to walk out of the county jail after posting $1,000 bond on charges that he ran over an ex-girlfriend earlier this month.
But Brooks walked even though he was also charged with bail jumping as he was already out on bond in connection with a July 2020 incident, In that case, he is accused of second-degree reckless endangering safety while using a dangerous weapon and one count of possession of a firearm by a felon.
Bail was set at $10,000 in the latter case but Brooks managed to have that amount reduced to just $500 because the court was unable to organize a speedy jury trial.
Brooks, now charged with five counts of intentional homicide after allegedly ramming his vehicle into parade participants, was due in court Tuesday.
In a statement Monday, Chisholm admitted his office should not have recommended such a low bail amount and has launched an internal review of the decision.
"The State's bail recommendation in this case was inappropriately low in light of the nature of the recent charges and the pending charges against Mr. Brooks," Chisholm's office stated.
“The bail recommendation in this case is not consistent with the approach of the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office toward matters involving violent crime, nor was it consistent with the risk assessment of the defendant prior to setting of bail."
Republican Rebecca Kleefisch, a former Wisconsin lieutenant governor running for governor in 2022, called the multiple deaths “yet another avoidable tragedy that occurred because a violent career criminal was allowed to walk free and terrorize our community.”
On social media, the criticism is more personal and strident.
Chisholm, who served four years in the Army prior to earning his law degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1994, has worked as a prosecutor for his entire legal career.
From 1999, he was the supervising assistant district attorney charged with prosecuting organized crime and drug trafficking. He successfully ran for district attorney with the approval of his former boss, E. Michael McCann.
The earlier part of his tenure as DA was dominated by the two "John Doe" investigations that snared dozens of individuals, with claims they were a politically motivated “witch hunt.” The second investigation, by a special prosecutor, was ultimately shut down by the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2015.
"This will go down as one of the ugliest chapters in Wisconsin political history” former Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke said in a piece published by Legal Newsline in 2014. "This is a witch-hunt by a hyper-partisan prosecutor's office … to go after political adversaries they disagree with.”
Former Sheriff Clarke, who later emerged as a vocal supporter of Donald Trump, told Legal Newsline that he thought of Chisholm as a "standup guy" when he worked with him some years ago on gun cases. Others described him as non-political.
But Clarke changed his opinion following the investigations of the Democratic Party's political rivals.
Clarke said, "I was appalled by some of the stuff that had gone on in the John Doe investigation, and that image I had of Chisholm as a person of unquestioned integrity started unravelling."
Chisholm was re-elected last year for another four-year term.
But his position may be affected by what is learned about the release of Brooks from jail just two days before the red SUV tore through the crowd in the center of Waukesha on Sunday.
Chisolm is likely to face further scrutiny if it emerges that the low bond for, and release of, Brooks was not a one-off but part of a pattern where potentially dangerous offenders have been released. And whether a link is found with the bail reform policy.
This would be contrary to the claimed position of supporters of the policy, which is described as evidence-based and aimed to benefit poor people charged with non-violent offenses and at low risk of re-offending. And it is meant to divert resources to make sure those charged with serious offences, such as Brooks, are more likely to remain in jail pre-trial.
There could be other factors, including the combination of Covid and rising crime. The system in Milwaukee and the surrounding region is under immense pressure with a backlog of cases that could take years to clear, Adam Plotkin, legislative liaison for the Wisconsin Public Defender’s Office, told the Wisconsin Examiner.
Violent crime is rising while the number of homicides, at over 160 this year, could yet surpass last year's record of 190. More than 740 people have been shot so far this year in Milwaukee, close to 25 percent more than last year.
"It’s a confluence of multiple intersecting problems that have compounded and that resulted in rates of violence that we have just never seen before,” Chisholm told Urban Milwaukee earlier this year. “These are historically high numbers.”