WISC-TV Reality Check Less Than Flattering to Gableman Effort

The Club for Growth shrunk last night. Here is what WISC-TV Channel 3 found when they ran a Reality Check: Third Party Ad In Supreme Court Race:

• "Criminals threaten our communities. Oddly enough, so do some judges who return them to the street," the ad says. "But not Judge Michael Gableman. He's a former prosecutor who has gone toe to toe with the arsonists, sexual predators, domestic abusers and white-collar criminals who belong in jail."
  • But: A closer look at Gableman's record shows limited experience in these types of cases. Gableman was the district attorney in Ashland County from 1999 to 2002. He only prosecuted one arson case, which was ordered an acquittal. In 19 felony child abuse cases, three were dismissed, 13 pleaded out to misdemeanor crimes, two were found not guilty at trial and only one was sentenced to prison time. In felony sexual assault of children cases, Gableman got 11 convictions out of 31 cases, and 15 cases were pleaded to misdemeanors.

• "That's why 70 percent of Wisconsin's sheriffs and countless police chiefs consider Gableman their ally in the war on crime," the ad said
  • WISC-TV found this claim to be true. Of the state's 72 county sheriffs, 51 have endorsed Gableman. As for "countless" police chiefs, 21 have endorsed Gableman. WISC-TV found that the tone of the ad and the images of crime and criminal cases used in it are misleading. The focus on criminal cases in the ad mischaracterizes the job of a Supreme Court justice. The Supreme Court decides constitutional questions, and it doesn't hand out sentences like a Circuit Court. In fact, usually less than a third of the cases accepted for review are even criminal, WISC-TV reported.

Of course, emphasis is added.