MILWAUKEE — Longer jail sentences are expected for reckless drivers who cause serious injuries in Wisconsin.
That’s because Governor Evers signed a new law last week that doubles the maximum jail sentence for a felony called ‘reckless driving causing great bodily harm’.
TMJ4 spent months looking into how many people have been put behind bars for that particular felony in recent years. The author of the legislation says he was shocked and disappointed by the results coming out of Milwaukee County Circuit Court.
Whether it’s a passenger in a car, a victim in another vehicle or a person crossing the street, reckless drivers who crash and cause serious injuries are the main target of a new state law.
“I want to give the lawmakers credit for trying,” said Milwaukee County Chief Judge Carl Ashley. “They’re trying to address it in a meaningful way. Is this the silver bullet to resolving it? Probably not.”
Chief Judge Ashley commends the legislature’s effort, but he says lawmakers' intentions may not result in the sweeping change they’re after.
“Does it give us more tools? Maybe,” Chief Judge Ashley said. "How much will this help? That remains to be seen."
In part, the new law takes reckless driving causing great bodily harm from the lowest level felony offense and turns it into the second lowest felony offense. That means judges can sentence defendants to three years in jail rather than a year and a half.
TMJ4’s Project: Drive Safer team wanted to find out how many people are typically convicted of that crime in the first place. We requested records from Milwaukee County Circuit Court asking for each conviction from 2019 through 2022.
The results, which were vetted by a court official, found 12 drivers were convicted of that crime during that four year period.
“Is that to suggest that this elevated felony could have a minimal impact in Milwaukee County?” TMJ4 reporter Ben Jordan asked.
“As regards to going from an I to an H, it’s very de minimis for criminal judges as far as those kinds of cases,” Chief Judge Ashley replied.
Let’s take an in-depth look at those 12 convictions - six of which involved other felony offenses that came with longer potential maximum sentences.
The other six involved that felony alone. The average sentence in those cases was 4 months in jail followed by more than 2.5 years of probation or extended supervision.
“Is that a just sentence for that type of crime?” Jordan asked.
“I’m glad you’re asking it this way because we need to make sure that we look at each individual case,” Chief Judge Ashley said. “What was going on? Was that someone with a first offense? No priors? Is that someone who has been involved before?”
Chief Judge Ashley says a vast majority of reckless driving offenses do not end up in criminal court, but when a reckless driver causes a serious injury, they’re almost always charged and convicted of harsher felonies.
That could be because the reckless driving incident involved a hit-and-run, operating while intoxicated or recklessly endangering safety to name a few.
“I think we don’t ignore the legislature, they have increased the penalties,” Chief Judge Ashley said. “That will be a factor all judges take into consideration in each individual case.”
State Representative Bob Donovan authored the legislation that garnered broad bipartisan support over the past few months.
"We need our judges to take this issue seriously,” he said.
Donovan says he isn’t pleased with the amount of convictions or the average sentence length for the crime he and his colleagues focused on in Madison.
“12? I’m shocked,” he said.” Why are we going through the process of passing these laws and going about our business in the legislature? We wanted to provide these tools to our judges to begin to hold people more appropriately accountable, so that’s not happening. Something needs to change.”
It’s important to note that the 12 convictions for reckless driving causing great bodily harm do not include any cases involving people under the age of 18. The clerk of courts redacted cases involving underage teens.
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