Liberal Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate dubbed ‘No Jail Janet’ for letting violent felons off easy
Barnini Chakraborty
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The owner of a Wisconsin commercial cleaning business with a lengthy rap sheet and a history of terrorizing women is among a list of felons who received slaps on the wrist by Wisconsin Judge Janet Protasiewicz — and then went on to commit even more dastardly deeds.
The man, Matthew J. Neumann, was convicted in 2020 of two counts of first-degree reckless homicide and two counts of hiding a corpse after his wife eventually turned him in. Prosecutors said Neumann had brutally killed and then attempted to burn the remains of Robert Hajduk and Richard Conklin, two of his employees at Spot Free Cleaning in East Troy, Wisconsin, after a night of drinking.
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A jury finally sentenced Neumann to 72 years in prison, but the case, along with a handful of others, has come back to haunt Protasiewicz in her race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Protasiewicz, who has been dubbed “No Jail Janet,” is locked in a high-stakes race against conservative candidate and former Justice Daniel Kelly.
Kelly and his backers have seized on Protasiewicz’s sentencing records and claim in ads blanketing the airwaves that she is soft on crime and will do little to protect the people of Wisconsin.
In another incident, Protasiewicz sentenced a man who broke his wife’s face in a brutal beatdown to just six months behind bars. Two years after the incident, Lazarick Spade went on a shooting spree outside his estranged wife’s home, nearly killing her.
Protasiewicz also went easy on a man who raped his cousin while she was unconscious.
On Monday, a new ad taking aim at Protasiewicz was launched.
In it, three Wisconsin sheriffs faulted the judge for failing to lock up criminals.
“Our officers risk their lives to protect your families, but law enforcement’s hands are tied when judges like Janet Protasiewicz refuse to hold dangerous criminals accountable,” Sheriffs Wes Revels, Eric Severson, and Dale Schmidt said in the ad, drawing attention to the case of Quantrell Bounds, a man who assaulted and raped a 13-year-old girl, recorded, and posted the incident online. Protasiewicz sentenced Bounds to five years and nine months behind bars but suspended the jail time and gave him probation.
For her part, the judge has given feeble reasons for her decisions and in some cases claimed she hadn’t been lenient, only to have transcripts and court records prove her wrong.
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Protasiewicz and Kelly are battling it out in perhaps the most consequential election of 2023. They are running to replace retiring Justice Patience Roggensack, a conservative whose term expires in July. While the election is technically nonpartisan, the court has a 4-3 conservative majority. The April 4 general election will likely determine the ideological makeup of the court as it takes on matters such as abortion, gerrymandering, and election laws.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court also stepped in during the 2020 presidential election when former President Donald Trump and his allies, which included Kelly, tried to overturn the results.