Judge D. Hansher/Lawyer M. Kohler – A Pattern of Legal System Corruption.
Who are David Hansher and Martin Kohler? A Judge and lawyer, but far more and worse.
I expose legal system corruption on blog www.markinglin.com. The exposure has value for those who do not know of and cannot imagine the level of perfidy that exists in the Milwaukee legal system. I witnessed that perfidy; I discovered that it comprised a pattern, not an isolated case.
If understood properly, awareness of the pattern of legal system corruption can help an innocent client withstand a psychological onslaught by their own defence lawyer. Coercion by the defence lawyer for a plea-bargain is the primary element in the pattern.
In my case, a clinically depressed mother who suffered from postpartum anxiety and episodes of severe psychosis was forcing our son’s head under water. She repeatedly threatened to harm him; she could have killed him. That result was certainly not unknown.
I had violated a court order to save my son from further harm and to bring attention to the abuse, which had been repeatedly ignored. Judge D. Hansher didn’t want the case in his courtroom; it was messy. So he put my defence lawyer Martin Kohler, to work. Hansher and Kohler demanded a plea bargain. To avoid personal punishment, I was to agree that my son had not been abused. Colleagues of Hansher/Kohler could thereby not have had part in allowing the abuse to continue through years of on-record complaints by me, legal and medical.
Over 18 months Kohler was permitted by Hansher to feign false trial dates for purposes of raising anxiety, enervation and intimidation of defence witnesses. He raised the spectre of further harm coming to my son unless I plea bargained. The list of deceits and threats during that time is extensive, all permitted by Hansher. He wanted that plea bargain, and Hansher had assured he would get it. (Kohler prided himself on being known as the “plea-bargain specialist”)
I refused to allow the abuse to remain concealed; I steadfastly refused the plea bargain. Kohler was furious. He threatened five years hard time at Waupun Correctional Institute if I lost at trial. Of course, his demeanour made it clear that he might not do his best to avoid that loss. Hard as it is to believe, he did more than that.
I insisted on a trial with witnesses and the presentation of years of collected evidence, thereby finally putting an end to the threat to the child.
What I got instead was a shock. There was no reversion to accepting the client’s wishes and applying law. There was anger and revenge in spades.
Kohler refused to submit a witness list, presumably counting on a last minute capitulation by me to the plea bargain. He refused to present medical evidence, including the legal efforts hitherto made in court to expose the abuse. He folded as a defence lawyer, revealing himself as spiteful and hateful and small in moral stature.
The prosecutor, Fred Matestic, went gleefully along, asking the jury why there were no witnesses or medical evidence.
All said and done, Hansher and Kohler had an explanation for a trial without witnesses and evidence. The defendant was obviously mentally ill. There had been no evidence of such illness during the 18-month run up to the trial or in any history, however. The illness became especially apparent when I began publishing what Kohler and Hansher had done.
The pattern? There will be revenge if the plea bargain is refused. It was extreme here, but commonly the defence lawyer who counts on the plea bargain has not prepared for a trial, and will thus botch the trial or simply drop the case.
The legal appeal as the cure? No. Appeals lawyer Steve Glynn described the trial and the circus surrounding it as, “paternalism,” well known in cases where the defendant has little influence. Glynn knew a duck by its quack and its walk, but when it came time to call it a duck, he refused.
That concluded the pattern. The defendant is expendable in the local legal system, fellow lawyers and judges are not. Glynn concealed everything at the last minute in the appeal. “Technical issues” took the place of reporting not just gross negligence and incompetence, but outright, intentional misuse of the legal system to punish someone who refused to plea bargain.
Where are Kohler and Hansher today, and Matestic, and Glynn? Hiding, presumably, Perhaps hiding from themselves most of all.
These men are at the end of their natural lives, and the exposure of this case blocks happy thoughts before they meet the devil.
They had the power to stop severe nervous system damage to a child through abuse, and they refused. That would have required courage, integrity and lawful conduct.
It was asking too much.
