Good morning.
Friday (the first day of Today is the nine hundred fifty-fifth day.
On this day in 1788, having been ratified by the required number of (nine) states, the United States Constitution is established (with government under that document to begin on March 4, 1789).
Recommended for reading in full:
Patrick Marley reports Wisconsin agrees to nearly $5 million in settlements with former teen inmates:
Gov. Tony Evers’ administration agreed Thursday to pay nearly $5 million to three former inmates at Wisconsin’s juvenile prison complex — bringing the state’s total legal bills for problems there to more than $25 million.
The settlements are aimed at resolving allegations that guards broke a boy’s arm, rammed a girl’s head into a wall and punished another girl after a suicide attempt.
The settlements wrap up some of the last of the lawsuits over Lincoln Hills School for Boys and Copper Lake School for Girls, which have been mired in litigation and investigations for years.
A criminal probe of the facilities ended in April without charges after four years. Lincoln Hills and Copper Lake are scheduled to close in 2021, though Evers has said he may need more time to transfer the teens held there to regional facilities that have yet to be built.
The settlements were announced just hours before the state Assembly passed a bill that would delay the closure of Lincoln Hills by six months, until July 2021.
Under the settlements, the state would pay $1.95 million to Laera Reed, $1.95 million to Paige Ray-Cluney and $875,000 to Jacob Bailey. In all, that comes to $4.78 million.
John Sandy, an attorney for Reed and Ray-Cluney, said in a statement that the pair were held in isolation for 23 hours a day for weeks at a time in urine-stained cells.
“They had little to no educational instruction or human interaction,” his statement said. “Their severe isolation caused (post-traumatic stress disorder), depression and led to numerous suicide attempts. They lost all hope. Today is, in part, a reclamation of hope.”
(Whatever the financial cost, the personal cost of government misconduct has been greater; no settlement can adequately compensate for physical and emotion injury.)
Gina Barton reports The family of a man who died after tasing by West Milwaukee police will get $2.5 million:
The Village of West Milwaukee has agreed to pay $2.5 million to the family of a mentally ill man tased repeatedly before his death in May 2017.
The settlement, approved by the Village Board Monday evening, resolves a federal civil rights suit filed by the family of Adam Trammell, who was 22 when police broke down the door to his apartment and tased him as he showered.
1. Preferring colder weather to warmer temperatures, I’m inclined to substitute mistakenly a warmer season with a colder one.