Vote April 5th for Safety, Justice and Equality! Join Molepske For Judge!
DA Louis Molepske, Jr. is running for Br. 2 Circuit Court Judge. Louis has the Experience, Leadership and Integrity we need!
Louis' background and beliefs
About DA Louis J. Molepske, Jr.
I am running for Judge for my children, your children and all the children and vulnerable people in Portage County. I pledge to work hard everyday to keep them safe and to make fair and impartial decisions based upon the rule of law found in our Constitution and statutes and the facts of the case. Politics will not steer my decisions - only the law and the facts will influence my decisions.
For the past nine years, I have worked with law enforcement to protect the public and ensure victims' rights were honored in my decisions as Portage County's District Attorney. I filed and tried the most complicated felonies to jury trials. I tried four straight trials and received convictions in each in the beginning of 2022 consisting of two child sex offenses tried together, a 1st degree sexual assault of a woman, an attempted homicide and an aggravated battery. All of these cases demanded a high degree of competence and compassion for the victims involved. Under my leadership, we have filed approximately 9000 cases since I became DA.
Workload - I have 233 open criminal felony cases in my own caseload. I manage approximately 2000 matters annually as the DA in Portage County. A judge must manage a branch, my current job helps me to be ready to manage branch 2 in Portage County. I also currently manage 13 employees and a budget of over $1 million dollars.
I have over 20 years of legal experience working in Portage, Wood, Marathon, and Waupaca Counties. I have eleven years practicing law with clients in civil matters where I worked on commercial development matters, landlord/tenant matters, family matters, estate matters, and took a limited amount of defense cases.
I represented Portage County residents in the Legislature between 2003 and 2013 where I drafted and passed laws that my constituents asked me to work on. I worked on several matters including drafting and placing in the state budget UWSP's enabling legislation for a nursing degree, and I also helped save Skyward jobs that ultimately led to a new World Headquarters in Stevens Point. I fought to protect worker rights to be heard in the workplace by opposing Act 10 changes, and I helped businesses grown their workforce and profitability by voting to create tax and regulatory changes. I have visited every part of Portage County to speak to its citizens because I wanted to know what people need from their government.
Some Current Issues:
Bail in criminal cases: I support denying bail to violent offenders or issuing high cash bail to protect the public and ensure defendants appear in court. I am currently supporting a change to our constitution to allow judges the ability to deny bail or set high cash bonds when the seriousness of the alleged crimes demands it to protect the public.
Diversion: I believe in working with young or first time offenders in non-violent cases to offer offenders the chance to earn their case being diverted from the traditional court process to a monitored process in the DA office with our Diversion Coordinator (an ex probation agent) and our Diversion Case Manager (an ex police officer). These two DA Office employees identify why a young or first time offender is committing a crime in the first place to identify any treatment needs first and any underlying issues like trauma or mental health issues to get a person back on track to living their life crime free. The offender must voluntarily agree to be in our program, pay a fee and abide by the rules. If the rules are violated the person goes back to traditional court to be sentenced or the case continues.
Alternative Courts: I support veteran courts, drug courts and alcohol courts to stop criminal recidivism by treating the underlying reason a person may be committing crimes. For example. If a defendant has drug dependency issue our County under a program I helped create voluntarily enters into treatment with daily check-ins with staff and weekly meetings with the court to ensure compliance with a drug free lifestyle. The goal of drug court, veterans court and alcohol court is to stop substance abuse which is leading to criminal activity before the offender hurts someone or hurts or kills themselves. As DA and Judge, I want to keep people alive by providing treatment that they are unlikely to get in Prison. The offender has a choice, get clean in the community or go to prison. I am so proud of the many people that have chosen to get clean in our Drug Court and turn their lives around.
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THANK YOU!!!
To my friends, family and supporters, I am so humbled by your trust in me to become Portage County's next Judge in Branch 2. Thank you!