This is the third installment in “Exploring Integrity: Reviewing Wrongful Conviction Remedies,” a series examining the impact of conviction integrity units on the American judicial system’s rate of wrongful conviction. Presented by the O’Brien Fellowship in Public Service Journalism, the investigation is supported by Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
In Wendy Patrickus’s 40 years practicing law, she’s taken cases ranging from a traffic ticket to homicide, even serving as “second chair,” or second lead defense attorney for Jeffrey Dahmer’s trial.
But one of Patrickus’s many cases still sticks out to her — and that’s because of what she considers to be a wrongful conviction.
She had a client, Michael Hirn, who in 1992 was convicted with five others of murdering their coworker Thomas Monfils at the James River Paper Mill in Green Bay.
“My client wasn’t even in that area, and I think that he definitely was wrongfully convicted,” Patrickus says.
In 2018, after more than 23 years in prison, Hirn was granted parole.
Every year an undetermined number of individuals is wrongfully convicted, according to estimates and research by criminal justice scholars and innocence advocacy organizations. Some, like Hirn, spend a couple of decades in prison, despite doubts about their guilt. Others, like Temujin Kensu in Michigan, spend nearly twice that amount, or more, losing entire portions of their lives due to crimes they did not commit.
Some states and counties have conviction integrity units, which act as a last hope for the people who have already tried appellate court reviews or failed to get a fresh look at the factors that led to their incarceration. In Wisconsin, including the state’s largest county, Milwaukee, no CIU exists.
Milwaukee County Circuit Court recorded 4,288 convictions from Nov. 1, 2024 through Oct. 22, 2025. The outcomes of these cases included: found guilty at a jury trial; guilty due to guilty plea; guilty due to no contest plea, and other dispositions. Carl Ashley, Milwaukee County Circuit Court’s chief judge, did not respond to multiple interview requests to discuss potential concerns related to wrongful conviction in the courtrooms he supervises.
Some attorneys are skeptical about the idea of a CIU in Milwaukee County or statewide. A CIU would take additional tax dollars to put together, says Patrickus, and staff would have to be hired to review cases and determine which petitions have merit — and which don’t.
She also says it could be difficult to implement in Wisconsin if the unit is comprised of prosecutors, because most truly believe the individuals they’re prosecuting are guilty.
“I’m not saying that one of these integrity units wouldn’t work,” says Patrickus, owner of Law Offices of Wendy A. Patrickus. “I just don’t know how feasible it would be, given the circumstances in the state of Wisconsin.”
Madison Kelly, criminal defense attorney at Grieve Law, has a different perspective. Though only practicing professionally since June 2024, Kelly has gained prior experience with wrongful conviction during her time at the Wisconsin Innocence Project.
The Innocence Project at the University of Wisconsin-Madison seeks to exonerate the innocent, but it comes with cutoffs. Kelly says the appeals process can be slow, and due to a lack of time and resources for investigation, the Project only accepts individuals serving over seven years of initial confinement.
“What that means is that only people who are convicted of very serious felony-level offenses are eligible for innocence projects and for this type of review,” she says.
So Wisconsin could benefit greatly from a CIU, Kelly says, not seeing any down sides.
In many situations involving misdemeanors, Kelly says, clients are convinced to agree to a plea or lesser charge, because defending themselves can be costly and they may be scared of what the prosecution can present to a jury. Taking an offer to resolve also eliminates the option to have their decision reviewed.
“When they do that I think there’s a space where that could also be considered a wrongful conviction,” Kelly says. “If there was a conviction integrity unit, it would be phenomenal if it could review misdemeanor-level offenses, as well.”
Franklyn Gimbel, founding partner of Gimbel, Reilly, Guerin & Brown, LLP and attorney of 65 years, says CIUs can be assessed based on the personalities of the prosecutors involved in the unit.
By and large in Wisconsin and the federal system prosecutors have integrity, he says. However, some look to bolster their personal statistics with convictions, or overcharge certain offenses.
“If you have a prosecutor or prosecutor’s office where they are engaged in what they believe to be this holy mission of getting convictions against people and they approach their responsibilities in a way that is less honorable or open, it’s going to be hard to do business with those people,” Gimbel says.
Criminal defense lawyer Scott Wales owns Law Offices of Scott A. Wales, LLC and has practiced for over 30 years. It’s hard to discuss the possibility of a CIU in Wisconsin without an existing model to look at, Wales says.
On one hand, if the unit were to consist of prosecutors from the same office where a conviction was previously obtained, the CIU would be untenable and there would be no consensus to reopen a case; on the other hand, if the unit actually worked and provided a measure for determining a correct or incorrect conviction in Wisconsin, Wales says it would be “wonderful.” A unit led by retired judges, as an alternative to prosecutors, could be a model worth exploring, he adds.
But Wales believes the remedy to wrongful conviction already exists in the form of appellate review, though he acknowledges how rarely appeals succeed. A newly formed CIU likely wouldn’t be structured to accommodate the flood of incoming petitions it would receive, he adds.
“I think the conversational topic is worthwhile,” Wales says. “But I think, candidly, the ability to put together something that really could work is, at best, a pipe dream.”
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