MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Former gubernatorial candidate Mark Green was in the running for University of Wisconsin System president.
A selection committee chose Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education Vice Chancellor Peter Garland, Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education President Robert King and UW-Extension and UW Colleges Chancellor Ray Cross as finalists. The Board of Regents hired Cross earlier this month.
System records released on Thursday show David Wilson, who once worked as UW-Extension and UW Colleges chancellor and now serves as president at Morgan State University, and Green, a Republican who unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2006 rounded out the top five candidates.
System officials said Wilson, the only black candidate in the top five, withdrew himself from consideration. Green didn’t get enough votes from a search committee to be considered a finalist.
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MADISON, Wis. (AP) - A Wisconsin appeals court has ordered some records released relating to a secret investigation that reportedly involves Gov. Scott Walker’s campaign and conservative groups.
The court order issued Thursday does not include documents that would identify the people who are being investigated, specific information sought by subpoena or search warrant or other details of the investigation.
The documents include attorneys’ requests to stop the investigation, a response from the special prosecutor and other procedural filings.
Attorneys for three unnamed petitioners also had asked the appeals court to suspend the so-called John Doe probe in Milwaukee, Iowa, Dodge, Dane and Columbia counties or send their request directly to the state Supreme Court.
The District IV Court of Appeals rejected both of those requests.
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WAUSAU, Wis. (AP) - A Wisconsin couple must begin serving their jail sentences for praying over their dying daughter instead of seeking medical treatment for her, a judge ruled Thursday.
Marathon County Circuit Judge Greg Huber ordered Dale and Leilani Neumann of Weston to begin serving their sentences this September. The Neumanns appeared in court by phone, Daily Herald Media (https://wdhne.ws/1iRjzWE) reported.
The couple prayed instead of seeking help as their 11-year-old daughter, Madeline Kara Neumann, died at home in 2008 from a treatable form of diabetes. They were convicted of second-degree reckless homicide in 2009 and have been on probation since.
At Thursday’s hearing, Byron Lichstein, a law professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and co-director of the Wisconsin Innocence Project, asked Huber to throw out the couple’s jail sentence. The judge denied the motion.
“In this case, jail wasn’t meant to protect the public,” Huber said. “A crime was committed; a life was lost. Jail was appropriate to reflect the seriousness of this offense. I see nothing here that would change that fact.”
Separate juries convicted the Neumanns in 2009. A judge ordered them to serve one month in jail per year for six years, a concession intended to ease the burden of caring for their surviving children.
They’ve stayed out of jail because of appeals, but in December, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
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RIVER FALLS, Wis. (AP) - A mother whose three daughters were murdered by their father in northwestern Wisconsin is working to honor their memory, has remarried and is expecting another child.
Jessica Peterson said she is focused on bringing something positive to the River Falls community where Aaron Schaffhausen took the lives of his daughters in July 2012.
“I miss the girls still a lot,” Peterson said. “That’s a pain I think I’ll always carry. But I try to do it in a way that would make them proud of me, in much the way I would want them to carry on if they’d lost me.”
Peterson, family, friends and the greater River Falls community have raised nearly $250,000 so far for the Tri-Angels Playground in memory of Amara, 11, Sophie, 8 and Cecilia, 5. The fundraising goal is $550,000 for a playground accessible to all children.
“Something people could interact with and make their own memories, and in that way, keep my girls’ memories alive,” Peterson said. She hopes “to bring something back into this world to balance out the great evil that was done,” Peterson told KSTP-TV (https://bit.ly/1fpGuFchttps://bit.ly/1fpGuFc ).
Schaffhausen is serving three life sentences for slashing his girls’ throats, then tucking their bodies into bed, in what prosecutors described as a revenge attack against his ex-wife. The defense claimed insanity; a jury found that he had a mental defect but still understood he was doing wrong.
Peterson has married again and is seven months pregnant.
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