James Carlson to retire in July after 36 years on the bench
By Vicky Wedig
Editor
In 36 years on the bench, a few cases stand out in Judge James Carlson’s mind – his first murder case, the trial of a priest and the drunken driving homicide of two girls.
Carlson was elected as a Walworth County Circuit Court judge in 1979 and will retire at the end of July after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer a year ago.
“I would have been considering very much retiring anyway,” said Carlson, 71, of Whitewater.
He said he was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus Jan. 24 – on his 71st birthday. The cancer had not spread outside the esophagus, so Carlson underwent chemotherapy and radiation and had part of his esophagus removed laparoscopically.
“So, it was a successful operation,” he said. “I have to be tested every so often for five years.”
Carlson must now eat smaller, more frequent meals and can’t lie flat. He took a month off the bench for treatment but said the illness hasn’t affected his handling of cases.
Carlson forewent the two-year rotation of court branches – judges cycle through misdemeanor, felony, family and civil courts – due in January 2015 and stuck with Branch 2, misdemeanor and traffic offenses.
“I took this court because I thought it was easier,” he said.
He will spend his last seven months as judge in Branch 2 and said he will not endorse a successor for the bench. District Attorney Dan Necci, family court commissioner Dan Johnson and Lake Geneva attorney Shannon Wynn are seeking election to the post in the April 5 election.
“I don’t have a strong feeling about who should be the follow-up judge,” he said.
Background
Carlson began his law career in 1970 and worked as an assistant city attorney in Whitewater prosecuting municipal court cases before becoming Walworth County district attorney in 1976.
Carlson’s drive to become district attorney began when then-DA Bob Read, of Delavan, quit the post when John Byrnes was elected as judge in a contested race in 1975.
The pool of candidates was numerous enough that a primary election was required in September 1975, but Carlson said the campaigning was modest.
“When I think about it compared to how now days you see campaigns …” he said. “I bet you the whole thing, I didn’t get set back more than $1,000.”
Carlson won against Larry Horvinski in the primary in 1975, and then beat Tom Morrissey in the general election in the spring of 1976.
“I won by a narrow margin, and I was off as district attorney,” he said.
The district attorney’s office contained a cabinet for files but little else – not so much as a model for drafting a complaint, Carlson said.
“The cupboard was bare,” he said.
Carlson collected all of his statistics – the numbers of cases and convictions – by hand and even suggested to the County Board that he was overpaid following Read’s substantial salary.
Carlson had been serving as district attorney for three years when Judge Dewey Scholl died while playing tennis with Carlson’s then-assistant, Bob Kennedy, who became a Walworth County judge in 1988 and retired in 2012.
Kennedy applied to be appointed to the post at the time, but Carlson did not. When a friend told Carlson then-Gov. Lee S. Dreyfus asked whether the district attorney was interested in the judgeship, Carlson wrote a letter to the governor and was appointed.
Carlson retained the seat unopposed for the next 17 years. Lake Geneva municipal court Judge Hank Sibbing ran against Carlson in 1996 after Carlson opposed a recall election of Kennedy over the controversial sentencing of a man convicted of sexually assaulting his ex-wife. Carlson said Kennedy’s decision not to give the man prison time enraged some members of the public who rallied for Kennedy’s recall.
“My position was a recall wasn’t for individual decisions a judge makes,” Carlson said.
Carlson prevailed in the challenge by Sibbing, who then ran against Kennedy and lost by a narrow margin.
Crimes over the decades
Over 3-1/2 decades on the bench, Carlson said the number of domestic abuse cases and repeat drunken-driving offenses has grown.
“You see just a heck of a lot of domestic abuse,” he said.
Many times, he said, alcohol in involved in domestic disputes. He said Walworth County was one of the first to have a committee to combat domestic violence, and has established drug and alcohol courts whereby offenders are invited to participate in oversight of their drug or alcohol use in exchange for a reduced sentence. Carlson said the courts are a more formal arrangement of practices he conducted over the years in an attempt to rehabilitate offenders.
“In the old days, I would, up front, give a smaller sentence if they come in and show they’re in treatment,” he said.
The courts have added victim impact panels in which victims of drunken driving offenses, for example, tell offenders how their lives have been affected.
“This has been pretty effective,” he said.
Carlson said he recalls making a statement during the first victim-impact panel in the 1980s about the 40,000-plus deaths around the country from drunken driving. He said that number is now around 20,000, and is partly the result of changes in drunken driving laws and the increase in the drinking age to 21.
“The roads are safer,” he said.
However, he said, despite modification to the laws, Wisconsin remains the only state in the county in which a first drunken-driving offense is still a traffic violation, not a criminal offense.
“The alcohol lobby is a very strong one,” he said.
Memorable cases
Among the most memorable cases Carlson tried was the murder case of Michael Crabtree, 19, of Marengo, Ill., who was convicted of killing Mary Kathleen Thomas, 19, a student at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Thomas was the daughter of Sally McKenzie, the wife of then-Walworth County Sheriff’s deputy Dean McKenzie, who later became sheriff.
“Maybe it was because I knew these people,” Carlson said about the 1980 case.
Sally McKenzie was a fellow church member who recited the Lord’s Prayer and publicly forgave Crabtree for his transgressions and took a position against the death penalty, Carlson said.
“I disclosed that I knew her,” he said.
Despite that, Carlson remained on the case, but a jury was called in from Kenosha County. Crabtree, now 54, was sentenced to life in prison, and is housed at the Oshkosh Correctional Institution.
Another memorable case, Carlson said, was the sexual assault trial of Donald J. McGuire, a Jesuit priest from Illinois convicted of sexually assaulting two altar boys in Lake Geneva.
The trial began in 2006, but the crimes were committed in the 1960s, Carlson said. The boys were McGuire’s student at Loyola Academy in Wilmette, Ill., but were assaulted at a Fontana home, he said.
The statute of limitations for the crimes was suspended when McGuire left the state and returned to Illinois, so then-District Attorney Phil Koss was still able to prosecute the case in Wisconsin, he said.
McGuire was convicted and sentenced to seven years but the decision was appealed, Carlson said. In the meantime, 38 other people came forward alleging abuse by McGuire, he said. The federal courts got involved, and McGuire is now serving a lengthy sentence in Illinois, he said.
“It was one of the most tense cases,” Carlson said. “It was a gut-wrenching experience.”
McGuire was represented by high-profile Milwaukee attorney Gerald Boyle, who defended former Green Bay Packers football player Mark Chmura on sexual assault charges of which he was acquitted in 2000. Chmura attended court proceedings in Walworth County in support of McGuire, and Carlson had to tell members of the courthouse staff that asking for the athlete’s autograph wasn’t appropriate.
Another case that stayed in Carlson’s mind was the death of two recent high school graduates in Whitewater in June 1993. Six-time drunken driving offender George Lohmeier, 41, of Whitewater, hit Renee Belair and Stacie Rogers with his car as they were walking along Willis Ray Road, killing both of them, and then fled the scene.
“These girls had just graduated from high school and were just getting on with their lives,” Carlson said.
Public sentiment rallied around the girls during a time when drunken driving laws were not as stiff, and Carlson said he had no choice but to sentence Lohmeier to the maximum penalty. Lohmeier, now 64, was sentenced to 30 years in prison in January 1994.
The next chapter
Carlson, who never married and has no children, said he will likely spend his retirement traveling, cross-country skiing and continuing the work he does with local service groups. He is a Secular Franciscan – a lay order of Catholic men and women, serves on his church council and as a trustee at the archdiocese level and has done mission work in Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
He said the effect his role as judge has had on the people involved in the cases has been the most fulfilling. He received a card from a defendant thanking him for sentencing her and turning her life around.
“I liked being involved with the people,” he said. “I enjoy the people side of the trial court.”
