MADISON, Wis. — Wisconsin judicial supervisors have filed a misconduct complaint against a Dane County judge who allegedly left court to try to arrest a hospitalized suspect and got into an altercation with a suspect in a child sex abuse case.
The state judicial commission filed the complaint against Ellen Berz on Thursday, The Wisconsin State Journal reports this. The state Supreme Court on Friday ordered Maxine White, chief judge of the state’s appellate courts, to create a judicial panel to review the complaint and make disciplinary recommendations to the judges.
According to the complaint, Berz presided over a DUI case in December 2021. The defendant did not appear in court on the day the trial was scheduled to begin. His lawyer told Berz that the suspect had been admitted to a hospital.
Berz had an employee investigate and discovered he was in the Sun Prairie emergency room. The judge tried to order her bailiff to leave the courthouse and arrest him, but she was told the bailiff couldn’t leave, according to the complaint.
She then stated that she would retrieve the suspect herself and if anything happened to her, her people would hear about it on the news, according to the complaint. She then left the court and began driving to the emergency room with the defendant’s attorney in the passenger seat, the complaint said. There was no prosecutor present in the car.
She eventually turned away after the attorney warned her that traveling to the hospital was a bad idea because she would be the neutral decision maker in the case, according to the complaint. She went back to court and issued an arrest warrant for the suspect.
The complaint also alleges that she told a defendant in a child abuse case who had asked to have his trial postponed for a second time that he was playing games and that he should “go to jail and talk to them about all the games you can play’. .”
When the defendant said her sarcasm was obvious, she told him, “Good. I thought it would be like this. That’s why I’m saying it to you this way, because I thought you would identify with that.
The complaint accuses Berz of violating state Supreme Court rules that require judges to act in a manner that promotes public confidence in judicial impartiality, protecting people with whom they deal professionally. with patience, dignity and courtesy and perform their duties without bias.
It was not clear whether Berz has an attorney. The complaint was addressed to attorney Steven Caya, but it did not say who he represents and Caya did not return a telephone message left by The Associated Press at his office Friday afternoon.
Berz’s judicial assistant said Friday that the judge would not comment on pending litigation. The assistant refused to identify himself.
