Madison, Wisconsin (AP) – The Supreme Court of Wisconsin suspended a county judge of Dane for a week on Tuesday for leaving the court for arresting an accused hospitalized herself and entering a sarcastic exchange with another defendant asking for a trial period.
The court agreed with the recommendation of suspension of a revision committee for the judicial conduct for Ellen Berz, concluding that it deserved more than a reprimand because it behaved impulsively and showed a lack of restraint. The suspension will start on June 26, ordered the court.
“We believe that the recommended suspension of seven days is of sufficient duration to impress Judge Berz the need for patience, impartiality and restraint in his work, and to demonstrate to the public the dedication of the judiciary to promote professionalism among its members,” wrote the judges in the suspension order. Justice Jill Karofsky, herself a former Dane County judge, did not participate in the case.
The suspension order noted that Berz had recognized the facts of the case and accepted full responsibility. Andrew Rima, one of the two Berz lawyers listed in the online judicial archives, refused to comment. His other lawyer, Steven Caya, did not immediately respond to an email.
Berz is the second Wisconsin judge that the State Supreme Court has suspended in the past five weeks. Judges The County Circuit of the County of Milwaukee suspended Hannah Dugan Indefinitely on April 29 after federal prosecutors accused him of helping a man escape the American immigration agents by showing him a rear door in his courtroom.
A great federal jury charged Dugan on a chief of obstruction and a person’s concealment chief to prevent arrest. She pleaded not guilty and should be legal in July.
The Wisconsin Judicial Commission has filed a fault complaint Against Berz, the county judge of Dane, in October, accusing him of not promoting public confidence in judicial impartiality, not having dealt with people professionally and not exercising his functions without bias.
According to the complaint, Berz chaired an operational case in December 2021. The defendant did not appear in the court the day the trial was to begin. His lawyer told Berz that the accused had been admitted to the hospital.
Berz investigated a staff member and learned that he was in an emergency room Sun Prairie. The judge ordered his bailiff to go and stop him, but he was told that the bailiff could not leave the courthouse. She said she would recover the accused herself, and if something happened to her, people would hear from the news, according to the complaint. She then left the court and began to go to the emergency room with the defendant’s lawyer to the passenger seat, said the complaint. No prosecutor was present in the vehicle.
She finally turned after the defense lawyer warned her that traveling to the hospital was a bad idea because she was supposed to be the deciding neutral of the case, according to the complaint. She returned to court and issued a mandate for the accused’s arrest.
The complaint also alleys that she told an accused in a case of sexual assault for children who had asked to delay his trial for the second time he played games and had to “go to prison and tell them about all the games you can play”.
When the accused said that her sarcasm was clear, she said to him, “Well. I thought it would be. This is why I tell you that way, because I thought you would pay you.”
