Cynthia Archer v. John Chisholm, et. al.

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Cynthia Archer v. John Chisholm, et. al. is a civil-rights lawsuit brought by Cindy Archer, one of the targets in the John Doe investigations related to Scott Walker. Archer sued Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm (D), two of his Assistant District Attorneys, Bruce Landgraf and David Robles, and two of his investigators, David Budde and Robert Stelter. Archer alleged that the defendants engaged in a campaign of harassment and intimidation. She is bringing three counts against the defendants:

• First Amendment retaliation
• Unreasonable search and seizure
• Denial of Miranda Warning/due process

John Doe investigations

See also: John Doe investigations related to Scott Walker

Two John Doe investigations were launched by Milwaukee County District Attorney John Chisholm (D) into the activities of staff and associates of Gov. Scott Walker (R).

The first investigation, John Doe I, was launched after Walker aide Darlene Wink noticed funds were missing from the money raised by Operation Freedom, a charitable event for veterans that Walker hosted annually. Walker's office turned the case over to the Milwaukee County DA's office to investigate the missing funds.

Over a year passed before the DA's office began investigating the case. By this time, Walker had announced his candidacy for Governor of Wisconsin. On May 5, 2010, Assistant District Attorney Bruce Landgraf asked for the authority to launch a John Doe investigation into the missing funds. He asked for the John Doe on the premise of determining where the funds had originated (i.e., sponsors and donors of the Operation Freedom Event). His request was granted by Judge Neal Nettesheim, who had been appointed the John Doe I judge.

During the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, the John Doe investigation was expanded multiple times to include a Walker donor and members of Walker's county executive staff. The homes, offices and cars of these people were raided and searched, and property, such as computers and cell phones, was seized. The investigation lasted three years and resulted in the convictions of six people, four of whom weren’t related to the missing funds on which the investigation was predicated. The announcement of the charges against the six were made in January 2012, in the midst of an effort to recall Gov. Walker due to his support for Act 10.

On June 5, 2012, Gov. Walker won a recall election (R). In August 2012, the first John Doe investigation was rolled into a second investigation, John Doe II. This investigation was based on the belief that Governor Walker’s campaign had illegally coordinated with conservative social welfare groups that had engaged in issue advocacy during the recall elections.

The second John Doe investigation spanned multiple counties but was consolidated into one investigation, overseen by an appointed judge and one special prosecutor, Francis Schmitz. During the early morning hours of October 3, 2013, investigators served search warrants on several homes and subpoenaed records from 29 conservative organizations. Several weeks later, on October 25, 2013, three targets of the subpoenas filed a motion to have the subpoenas quashed. The judge overseeing the investigation, Judge Gregory Peterson, granted that motion in January 2014, stating that the prosecutor's theory of criminal activity was not, in fact, criminal under Wisconsin statutes. Although Schmitz filed an appeal to a higher court, the investigation was effectively stalled.

A series of lawsuits were filed, one against the John Doe prosecutors for a violation of free speech and several others against the agency that oversees campaign finance law, the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB), for trying to enforce unconstitutional regulations of issue advocacy groups, the regulations on which the prosecutor's theory was based.

The legality of the investigation eventually went before the Wisconsin Supreme Court. On July 16, 2015, the Supreme Court ruled in a 4-2 decision to halt the John Doe II investigation officially. The court combined three cases into one, thereby simultaneously ruling on all three. In its ruling, the Supreme Court criticized Schmitz's handling of the case and declared the actions of Chisholm and Schmitz were violations of the targets' First Amendment rights to political speech.

The Supreme Court, in interpreting Wisconsin's campaign finance law, ruled "that the definition of 'political purposes' [...] is unconstitutionally overbroad and vague under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article 1, Section 3 of the Wisconsin Constitution because its language 'is so sweeping that its sanctions may be applied to constitutionally protected conduct which the state is not permitted to regulate.'"

The court noted that since issue advocacy is "beyond the reach of Ch. 11," Schmitz's theory of illegal coordination between Walker's campaign and social welfare groups was invalid. The court further declared "the special prosecutor's legal theory is unsupported in either reason or law," thereby declaring an official end to the John Doe II investigation.

Regarding the other two cases addressed in the ruling, the court denied Schmitz's supervisory writ and affirmed Peterson's original motion to quash the subpoenas. It also ruled that the John Doe II judges, Peterson and Barbara Kluka before him, had not "violated a plain legal duty" by allowing the appointment of one judge and one special prosecutor to preside over a multi-county John Doe, though the court did concede "the circumstances surrounding the formation of the John Doe investigation raise serious concerns."

In its ruling, the court ordered that "everything gathered as potential evidence—including thousands of pages of emails and other documents—be returned and all copies be destroyed."

Lawsuit

Background

In 2011, as part of the first John Doe investigation into Walker's aides, Archer's home was raided by law enforcement.

In January 2012, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel published an article detailing the John Doe investigation, looking into the bid process for a building lease for the county. In the story, they referenced the raid of Archer's house the year before.

The first John Doe investigation closed in March of 2013, with no charges having been brought against any parties involved in the lease bid. Likewise, no charges were ever brought against Archer.

On June 30, 2015, Archer filed a lawsuit against John Chisholm, the Milwaukee County District Attorney behind the John Doe investigations. On that day, Archer wrote an opinion-piece for The Wall Street Journal, where she explained why she was filing the lawsuit.

Decision

The lawsuit was filed in the Milwaukee County Circuit Court and was initially assigned to Judge Mel Flanagan. The case would later be heard in 2016, and was dismissed by Judge Lynn Adelman, who ruled that prosecutors did not act improperly, and that they had qualified immunity for the actions taken. In 2017, the United States Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal and ruled that the prosecutors had qualified immunity, and thus were not eligible to be tried.

See also

• John Doe investigations related to Scott Walker
• Timeline of John Doe investigations related to Scott Walker
• Wisconsin John Doe laws
• Scott Walker
• John Chisholm
• Cindy Archer

External links

• Cynthia Archer v. John Chisholm, et. al.