Lisa Neubauer - Appeals Court Judge since 2008, serving Kenosha, Racine and Walworth county, was out guest Tuesday. Lisa shared that although she is not a Rotarian, she is very familiar with because her child went to Indonesia as a Rotary Exchange student and in turn, they hosted a Rotary Exchange student from Germany. Lisa stated that she loves our state, our county and our democracy and to let us all know that the Appeals courts are fundamental to democracy! The Appeals Court judges see over 2400 cases/year. 3 judges review cases and determine if a mistake was made or not. Appeals court judges are fighting for independent and fighting for the rule of the law. She stated that dark money is the cancer of the court system. She has dedicated her life to law and justice. This commitment and her work ethic come from her parents. Her dad was a physician with the Navy Seals. He dedicated his career to his patients and was there for them no matter what. Made house calls and saw patients 7 days/week. She remembers during a bad snowstorm, he took a snowmobile to make visits. Her mom tutored and taught English as a 2nd language. Both her parents demonstrated and taught the value of making your community better. She decided to go into law after attending a concert in Chicago. She was an undergrad student at UW Madison and she and some friends went to the concert. When they came out, all the cars around the venue were ticketed and one of her friends took a ticket off of a car and was arrested. She went to the police station to bail him out and she was told she would be taken back and strip searched. She had never even been arrested and her friend who was arrested - was NOT strip searched. She knew then that this was not right and she filed suit and the American Civil Liberties union picked it up and challenged the City of Chicago's police department policy on strip searching woman for any misdemeanor or less! She became Jane Doe #1 and they WON! She, along with a female teacher from Racine, a Supreme Court judges wife who got out of the car on the wrong side of the taxi, and 2 nuns who who ran a homeless shelter and all had been stripped searched, appeared on Phil Donohue following the trial to tell their story. Strip Searching had impacted over 10,000 woman during the time it was enforced. Realized then the importance of Appeals courts when other court systems fail the and this gives them an opportunity to appeal. She reminded all of us that when voting to remember how important qualifications & merit of a person matter and we need to rally around this in order to maintain the independence of the courts. We want no thumbs on the scale, no ideology.
