If voters are only getting information about the 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates through attack ads, they would think both judges are happy to give light sentences to pedophiles and domestic abusers. Many campaign ads focus on sentencing decisions, and that can impact how all judges in Wisconsin rule from the bench.

“Susan Crawford, the radical liberal judge who let the predator out in just four years,” intones one attack ad.

“Guys like Brad Schimel, who gave big plea deals to rapists, domestic abusers and even a man caught with child pornography,” intones another attack ad.

Dane County Judge Susan Crawford and Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel have each been a circuit court judge since 2018. They’ve presided over thousands of cases and handed out sentences for every type of crime, allowing their opponents to cherry-pick their record and find cases that make them look soft on crime.

“Her criminal coddling record is an injustice to us all,” states an anti-Crawford ad.

“Schimel let domestic abusers walk with no jail time,” states an anti-Schimel ad.

They’ve also been running for a spot on the Wisconsin Supreme Court for more than a year, and actively considering it for much longer than that.

But Crawford and Schimel deny that their candidacy ever had an impact on the severity of sentence they imposed.

“Well, from the time I decided to run for Supreme Court, I’ve been in the civil division, so I haven’t handled any criminal cases. But no, you can’t do this. You can’t put your own personal political views or interests in place of doing justice,” Schimel said.

“Well, you know, I don’t make decisions as a judge based on what I think some future attack ad might look at. I make decisions, particularly in that example of criminal sentencing, based on what I believe is necessary to protect the safety of the community, what’s necessary to protect the crime victims in a case,” Crawford said.

In practice, though, the track record of how elected judges make sentencing decisions is different.

“There is a lot of evidence that when judges are approaching an election, they sentence people more harshly than they do in other points in their term, said Zoe Engberg, an assistant clinical professor at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

“And there’s also a lot of evidence that shows that negative campaign ads, in particular, have a large impact on how judges make decisions in cases,” she added.

Engberg points to a study out of Pennsylvania that examined a decades worth of sentences from every judge in that state, to show the fear of attack ads and reelection didn’t just impact high profile judges who were running for higher office, it affected every judge.

“They were able to really see how these trends developed and point to, I think it was about 2,000 years of incarceration over the space of a decade that was directly attributable to reelection, and not just typical sentencing,” she explained.

What’s most concerning is typically the cases in the attack ads aren’t even egregious decisions by the judges.

“A lot of attack ads of this nature about individual cases, about individual decisions made by judges, often are attacking judges for fairly typical decisions that almost any judge would have actually made given a similar case in similar circumstances,” said Engberg.

Schimel makes the same point, saying one of the domestic abuse cases he’s being attacked over involved a veteran with PTSD, where the victim pleaded with Schimel to give the man probation to get help.

“Any judge in their right mind would have done the same thing I did that day, and give him a chance on probation to show that he is truly redeemed,” Schimel said. “And he did it. He hasn’t been in any trouble ever since and never was in trouble before.”

But that didn’t stop Schimel from attacking Crawford over her sentencing decisions.

“As the law instructs judges in those kinds of cases to look at all the relevant factors, what the defendant’s rehabilitative needs might be, that person’s criminal prior criminal record,” said Crawford. “And I make a decision that I believe in the interests of justice and will protect community safety and protect the crime victim.”

Every one of those campaign ads lack context, and while they’ll likely help one of these candidates win a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Engberg said the impact of the ads will be felt in every courtroom in the state.

“The impact of this is that I think it motivates judges to always on the side of being more punitive and make decisions,” she said, “because in the back of their mind, they’re thinking, ‘What will this case look like in an election ad in my next reelection?'”