Here in Milwaukee we're kind of uncomfortable with how we're perceived by outsiders. Once we get done explaining that we're in Wisconsin, not Minnesota, we know what questions come next. No, it's not really like "Laverne & Shirley," and we don't drink beer all day long.
When the local legal news makes a national splash, it usually doesn't help. (Remember Jeffrey Dahmer? He was from here.) So we winced when Milwaukee County Circuit Judge William Sosnay was Above the Law's "Judge of the Day" today; winced again when the same story inspired the WSJ Law Blog to start a new chapter in its society of sartorial societies; and winced a third time when Corrections Sentencing captioned the story, "See Why I Left Wisconsin?"
What was it? A lawyer and a judge arguing over what to wear. As the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel reported (and the paper's great law blog Proof and Hearsay spread the word):
Justice may be blind, but Milwaukee County Circuit Judge William Sosnay's sense of courtroom fashion is not.
In the courtroom of the pompadoured judge long known as a fastidious dresser, a sentencing hearing in a misdemeanor case was delayed for three hours Tuesday after a veteran prosecutor turned up for court wearing an ascot.
A courthouse rule requires all lawyers to wear neckties, but prosecutor Warren Zier's occasional choice of creative cravats drew the judge's ire.
Sosnay's review found Zier's red ascot - which matched the handkerchief in the breast pocket of Zier's pinstriped gray suit - "borders on contemptuous," given the judge's prior warnings that he only cottons to neck- and bow-ties.
"This is not about the definition of an ascot or a necktie," Sosnay said in court, addressing a reporter in the gallery directly while a case waited to be heard. "This is an issue which I believe deals with the integrity of the court."
Luckily this is a jury blog, so there's no need to me to take sides. On the only issue I write about, they agree, and they're both right: don't wear an ascot in front of a jury.
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(Photo of Milwaukee's beautiful lakefront, which hardly ever makes national news, by Indy Kethdy at http://www.flickr.com/photos/indykethdy/2122175295/; license details there.)
