POLITICS

Powerful personal stories cut through the politics of the Wisconsin Supreme Court race

Molly Beck and Patrick Marley
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Brian Hagedorn (left) and Lisa Neubauer are candidates for Wisconsin Supreme Court.

MADISON - The two candidates seeking a seat on the state Supreme Court are introducing themselves to voters this week with powerful personal stories.

One helped change police practices across the country by being a lead plaintiff in a lawsuit challenging strip-search policies in Chicago. The other is sharing his story of adopting a baby girl born addicted to opiates and helping her overcome withdrawal. 

Lisa Neubauer and Brian Hagedorn, both state appeals court judges, say these experiences were defining moments in their path to seeking a 10-year term on the state's highest court.

Jane Doe No. 1

Lisa Neubauer's interest in Wisconsin courtrooms was sparked on a Chicago sidewalk in 1978. 

Neubauer, 21 at the time, said in an interview she had taken a trip with some friends from Madison to Chicago to see the Talking Heads in concert. After the show, she said a friend of hers was arrested by a Chicago police officer for taking a parking ticket off a car that didn't belong to him.

"The officer came over and took him away and put him in the car and then the officer came back to take down the information from the ticket and I was just standing there trying to figure out what was going on," Neubauer said Wednesday. "He actually said to me, 'Go find another boyfriend for the night.'"

Instead, Neubauer said she went alone to the police station to find her friend. After arriving, and without being arrested, a police matron told her to take off all her clothes.

"It was extremely scary," she said about being strip-searched. "I was young and, frankly, I think I was quite naïve. ... I was naïve to think I could walk into the police station myself and just get my friend out."

Neubauer was a political science major at the University of Wisconsin-Madison at the time and had taken a course in constitutional law. 

"I said to them, 'You can’t do this — I’m not under arrest,' " she said. "So I knew at the time that it was wrong."

The episode prompted Neubauer to pursue a lawsuit against the City of Chicago with the assistance of the American Civil Liberties Union. Neubauer and dozens of other women who had experienced what they believed to be unconstitutional strip-searches brought the lawsuit. 

Neubauer was listed in the suit as Jane Doe No. 1, she said. Her campaign provided legal correspondence to show Neubauer was part of the case that was brought anonymously.

According to court records, the plaintiffs were strip-searched after being detained for offenses no greater than traffic violations or were never charged with any offense.

Chicago police between 1952 and 1980 followed a policy that required a strip-search and a visual inspection of the body cavities of all women arrested and detained in the city lockups, regardless of the charges against the women, according to court records. The policy did not apply to men. 

"For me, it was such a significant experience in terms of saying we can look to our courts to make sure that our judges follow the law and follow the Constitution, and that it is in the court where we can look when things have gone awry, and the Chicago Police Department policy … it had gone awry," Neubauer said.

She said through the litigation, she discovered strip-searches were also happening to "young girls who were in the high schools without a pass" and to "women who took left turns when they shouldn’t have."

The City of Chicago ultimately agreed to pay $33,250 to the plaintiffs in the suit and banned strip-searches for minor offenses, according to a July 1980 Chicago Tribune article on the lawsuit. The Illinois Legislature passed a similar law in reaction to the suit. 

A spokesman for Neubauer's campaign said police departments in New York, Houston and Arlington, Virginia, adopted similar policies following the suit. 

Neubauer's story is told in a digital ad being released Thursday. Aides would not provide a cost for the ad buy.

Adopting Lily

In 2013 and after having four children naturally, Brian Hagedorn and his wife, Christina, decided to search for a fifth.  

The Hagedorns had considered adopting a child from early on in their marriage, Hagedorn said in an interview Wednesday.

They began seriously investigating the possibility in 2013.

Hagedorn said he was discouraged at first because he saw how long an adoption might take. After a meeting in April 2013, he thought an adoption might not happen, he said.

“We left that meeting and just said, ‘All right, well, we’re not sure this is what we want to do, let’s just pray and ask God to open up a door and an opportunity, ’” Hagedorn said.

An opportunity emerged the next day.

Christina Hagedorn that next day talked to a high school friend who had adopted a child. The friend told her she knew of a woman in Illinois who had used drugs and had no prenatal care who was looking for adoptive parents.

The Hagedorns got to know the biological parents and within about eight weeks the couple decided to voluntarily give up their parental rights and give their child to the Hagedorns, Hagedorn said.

The Hagedorns were in the delivery room when Lily was born and stayed with her in the hospital for about five days as she recovered from her opiate addiction.

"Lily was born addicted to opiates and had to struggle through withdrawal in my arms. But today she’s a happy, healthy little girl," Christina Hagedorn said in the ad. 

“She’s doing great,” Brian Hagedorn said in the interview. “She’s wonderful. She’s a blessing.”

Lily is now 5. Their other children are between 7 and 15.

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Lily does not have any lingering effects from her biological mother’s drug use, Hagedorn said. The family maintains an open adoption so they can visit the birth parents, he said.

"We need to show compassion, but we also need to hold people accountable, and that’s exactly what I’ll do on the Wisconsin Supreme Court," he said in the ad. 

Hagedorn’s campaign is spending $50,000 initially on the ad, which is on the air in Milwaukee and Green Bay and running on digital platforms.