Introducing Guest Journalist Blogger Ben Adlin

Our newest Guest Journalist Blogger, Ben Adlin, has served as both a reporter and editor at the Los Angeles Daily Journal, where he is currently an associate editor. As a reporter, Ben has covered federal courts and topics as varied as public employee pensions and efforts to regulate medical marijuana. And his topic could not be more timely. With the high court's January 2014 session around the corner, it's high time to debate the role of oral arguments.

-Associate Dean Michael Waterstone

Introducing our Inaugural Guest Journalist Blogger

I am excited to announce a new Summary Judgments feature: the Journalist Guest Blogger. We see this as a way for those who report on the law to weigh in on its inner workings. And not many reporters know the law better than Gina Barton, whose investigative reporting on law-enforcement and criminal-justice issues at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel has earned her a series of prestigious journalism awards. We are proud to count Gina as an alumna of the first class of our Civil Justice Program's Journalist Law School and honored to present her as the first Summary Judgments Journalist Guest Blogger.

-Associate Dean Michael Waterstone

Legal Community Divided over Standard of Review in Suspect's Death

By Gina Barton, Guest Journalist Blogger
Reporter, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

What is the definition of an intentional failure?

Debate over the answer to that question divides the legal community in Milwaukee after the death of Derek Williams, who died after gasping for breath and begging for help in the back of a Milwaukee police car.

Officials at the Milwaukee Police Department, Milwaukee County District Attorney's office and at the city's civilian Fire and Police Commission all watched a squad video that captured Williams' eight-minute struggle to breathe and concluded officers did nothing wrong.

After an investigation by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, which included a 10-month battle for a copy of the video, the medical examiner's office changed its ruling on the manner of death from natural to homicide. As a result of the revised findings, the district attorney re-opened the case, appointing a special prosecutor and calling for an inquest.