MADISON, Wis. — The Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended a Dane County judge for a week Tuesday for leaving court to try to arrest a hospitalized defendant herself and getting into a sarcastic exchange with another defendant seeking a trial delay.
The court agreed with a judicial conduct review panel’s suspension recommendation for Ellen Berz, finding that she deserved more than a reprimand because she behaved impulsively and showed a lack of restraint. The suspension will begin June 26, the court ordered.
“We believe that the recommended seven-day suspension is of sufficient length to impress upon Judge Berz the necessity of patience, impartiality, and restraint in her work, and to demonstrate to the public the judiciary’s dedication to promoting professionalism among its members,” the justices wrote in the suspension order. Justice Jill Karofsky, herself a former Dane County judge, did not participate in the case.
The suspension order noted that Berz has acknowledged the facts of the case and has accepted full responsibility. Andrew Rima, one of two attorneys for Berz listed in online court records, declined to comment. Her other attorney, Steven Caya, didn’t immediately respond to an email.
Berz is the second Wisconsin judge that the state Supreme Court has suspended in the last five weeks. The justices suspended Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Hannah Dugan indefinitely on April 29 after federal prosecutors accused her of helping a man evade U.S. immigration agents by showing him out a back door in her courtroom.
A federal grand jury has indicted Dugan on one count of obstruction and one count of concealing a person to prevent arrest. She has pleaded not guilty and is set to stand trial in July.
The Wisconsin Judicial Commission filed a misconduct complaint against Berz, the Dane County judge, in October accusing her of failing to promote public confidence in judicial impartiality, failing to treat people unprofessionally, and failing to performing her duties without bias.
According to the complaint, Berz was presiding over an operating-while-intoxicated case in December 2021. The defendant didn’t show up in court on the day the trial was set to begin. His attorney told Berz that the defendant had been admitted to a hospital.
Berz had a staff member investigate and learned that he was in a Sun Prairie emergency room. The judge ordered her bailiff to go arrest him, but was told the bailiff couldn’t leave the courthouse. She declared that she would retrieve the defendant herself, and if something happened to her, people would hear about it on the news, according to the complaint. She then left court and began driving to the emergency room with the defendant’s attorney in the passenger seat, the complaint says. No prosecutor was present in the vehicle.
She eventually turned around after the defense attorney warned her that traveling to the hospital was a bad idea because she was supposed to be the neutral decision-maker in the case, according to the complaint. She went back into court and issued a warrant for the defendant’s arrest.
The complaint also alleges she told a defendant in a child sexual assault case who had asked to delay his trial for a second time that he was playing games and should “go to the prison and talk to them about all the games you can play.”
When the defendant said her sarcasm was clear, she told him: “Good. I thought it would be. That’s why I’m saying it to you that way, because I thought you would relate with that.”