Hello All,
Below you will find a letter I sent to every non-profit that asked us for $$$ last fall. I cc’d Judge Blanchard (Brian.Blanchard@wicourts.gov) on every one of them (and there were a lot).

To sum up: Please a) vote Tuesday, and b) consider leaving Appellate Judge Brian Blanchard’s ballot line blank. Yes, even though he is the lone candidate. Don’t vote for him. He took the side of the crack dealer who ran me off the road and nearly killed me. Feel free to forward/facecake/whatever. Maybe this will make it on Whaddya Know, too!

Just don’t vote Blanchard.

-Mike
***

Dear Ms/Mr. XXXX,

First, a big thank you to you all at [Hardworking Non-profit X] for all the great work over the years in advocating for [The Good X]. We are in receipt of your fundraising letter from last fall. Again, thank you. We are proud to have been able to contribute generously in the past (back to the 90s!), because we so very appreciate your work. But we feel that we owe you an explanation as to why the Barrett household’s giving has gone down precipitously.

Unfortunately, in 2010 I (Mike) was run off the road by–now get this!–a crack dealer from Beloit, while riding my bike. Though I survived (barely), it ended up having a terrible impact on our ability to financially contribute to the good causes you so perfectly represent. I was on a bike route, riding in a completely legal manner. I reported the assault to the van’s owner (the state), thinking it was the right thing to do. Instead, the state brought criminal disorderly conduct charges against *me*.

Brian Blanchard, then-DA, brought the charges. During the prosecution, he won an election to Appellate Judge. Now he is running for a second term and is on the ballot Tuesday.

Mr. Blanchard’s prosecution degenerated into a vindictive persecution. Details can be found here: http://www.urbanthoreau.com/blog/?p=2095

The highlights are this:
-The entirety of my alleged crime was caught on government-owned security cameras. Brian Blanchard and his successor suppressed the video despite our immediate demands for it–and his legal obligation to provide it under Wisconsin statutes.
-Through a series of Open Records requests–and witness interviews by a costly investigator we were forced to hire–we found that at least one of the witness statements was fabricated. Either the Capitol Police or Mr. Blanchard’s office just made up a statement. (We have yet to ascertain which because the Capitol Police department continues to deny my Open Records requests.)
-The crack dealer (no dog-whistling here; this person was as white as white gets) had multiple felony drug dealing convictions and a horrific driving record. Just a few months before almost killing me (and admitting to it), this person T-boned another vehicle with another state van totaling both vehicles, and sending a passenger to the emergency room.
-We fought the DA all the way to trial. This is something most people in my situation never do, often for lack of financial resources, not wanting to commit the available resources, or fear of erroneously getting convicted, or all of the above.
-After months of legal time and many, many thousands in legal and other costs, the District Attorney had to admit before a judge, in writing and in open court, that no crime was committed. But the financial carnage was done.
-The DA’s office had to admit that my “offense” was my constitutionally-protected speech: writing a letter. I petitioned my government for a redress of grievances. (You can see the letter at the end of the blog post linked above).
-It is likely the prosecution was vindictively motivated by my very public criticism of his malicious prosecutorial record toward other cyclists back in the 90s.

In sum, the Barrett family had to dig deep into retirement savings to defend against Mr. Blanchard and his crack dealer. We are still playing catch up to ensure a stable financial life in retirement. Moreover, we now realize that we must financially gird ourselves against further vindictive prosecutions. We have had to throttle back our charitable giving commensurately. And we are sorry for this state of affairs, because we so admire your work. Indeed, it is a pity that Mr. Blanchard and his successor see their role as tearing down community.

We are aware that mine is but one tiny case among thousands. Mistakes happen, right? But it is of a pattern. Prior to my criticism when he first ran for DA (late-90s), Mr. Blanchard was #2 in a DA’s office that routinely went after law-abiding cyclists who came under attack from violent motorists (more in the link above).

More saliently, during his time as #1 at the DA’s office (late-90s through late 2000s), he racked up one of the worst race disparities in the prosecutorial history of the country–outpacing even Mississippi. Yes, worse than Mississippi. Mr. Blanchard *is* responsible for the giant run-up in charging and convicting minorities in Dane County, far beyond actual proportion of crime committed. From the Race to Equity Report (http://racetoequity.net/), we know that during his tenure as a prosecutor, a black person was six times more likely to be charged, convicted and imprisoned than a white person arrested for the same alleged crime and with the same previous record.

It is doubtful that he has changed his M.O. as a judge. Indeed, the numbers coming out of Dane County’s court system–all the way through the appellate process–attest to a continued persecution-through-vindictive-prosecution of minorities out of all proportion.

Mr. Blanchard is on tomorrow’s ballot unopposed. Of course, it is important to go to the polls. Nonetheless, for all of the reasons above, we strongly suggest that in tomorrow’s election, justice-minded people leave his ballot line blank. This could create an opening for a more fair-minded judge in the future. Why? Because potential challengers do vet incumbents based on how strong their previous showing was. Blank ballot lines do have power.

Anyway, again thank you so much for your work. I hope this helps explain why our civic financial involvement has–quite sadly–been dampened over the last several years.

And feel free to forward this on to anyone (board members, etc.) who might find this of interest.

Sincerely,

Mike & XXX Barrett
XXX XXX
Madison, WI 537XX

p.s. While we so appreciate your appeal letters, which are a gift in & of themselves, if you need to save money on postage, we won’t feel insulted if we are cut from the mailing list. It will be a good long while before we recover financially.