Rumors are flying that Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Jennifer Dorow, the darling from the mass murder trial of Darrell Brooks, might run for the WI Supreme Court. Dorow avoided having Brooks nearly walk all over her during his slam dunk trial. He was practically assured to be found guilty. Now Dorow is more popular than the Green Bay Packers were back in August.

I wasn’t tossing bouquets Dorow’s way. I thought Dorow invited the three-ring circus that made a mockery of the judicial system by allowing Brooks to represent himself from the very beginning to the end. A column by E. Jeffrey Ludwig posted on October 22 while the trial was in progress offered a far less glowing assessment of Dorow than most of her fan mail:

This writer, when first watching the trial of the Waukesha murderer, considered the judge a paragon of patience as she explained every statement made to the defendant, and answered his objections with a big sisterly, considerate tone of voice.  Only when his acting out became too extreme did she temporarily punish him by sending him to another courtroom where his microphone could be muted if his responses or interpositions were offensive.

This big sisterly or motherly patience seemed to dovetail with the intent that there be no impression that this black defendant was being railroaded by white prosecutors or a white judge.  

Thus, the judge’s motherly patience, as if toward a wayward or recalcitrant child, seemed to be in evidence throughout the proceedings in Wisconsin.  At first, it seemed to me that this was good because it would serve to reassure the critics of our justice system that justice could be served in a white-dominated trial.  However, the idea that justice is served by our willingness to be manipulated as proof of our “love” is inherently false, and I have retreated from my original respect for the judge and the ever-patient prosecution.  This is, I believe, a fruit of feminism, which sees motherly love as a model of the best behavior.  A more severe/fatherly tone would have been better.

Consider this column by Newstalk 1130 WISN’s Mark Belling from 2021:

Waukesha County Chief Judge Jennifer Dorow has consistently defended the lenient bail decisions made by the court commissioners.

Dorow for the state Supreme Court? No way.