No New Trial.

For John Maloney.

John Maloney as you may recall was the former police officer from Green Bay convicted for the murder of his wife. His family and others have been working to get him exonerated or at least a new trial.

The Wisconsin State Supreme Court this morning announced its refusal to grant Mr. Maloney a new trial.

The main line of appeal for Mr. Maloney was inadequate representation (Gerald Boyle initially represented Mr. Maloney). The Supreme Court of Wisconsin (SCOW) on that basis has denied relief to Mr. Maloney on that basis. The SCOW also considered if they should uphold the conviction based on prosecutorial misconduct.

Since Mr. Maloney was a GB police officer a special prosecutor handled the case. That prosecutor was Joe Paulus. Well, as we all know Mr. Paulus is serving time in a Federal Penitentiary for charges that can be summarized as corruption. So, the SCOW looked into the possibility of prosecutorial misconduct in addition to the stated grounds of appeal.

The SCOW in the end concluded there was insufficient evidence of prosecutorial misconduct to warrant a new trial in this case.

So it now appears as if the next court of appeals for Mr. Maloney will have to be a federal court. It sounds as if Mr. Maloney and his family will continue to pursue the case. It also sounds like the Maloney and Lew Wasserman (the attorney handling the appeals) took a wrong turn.

From everything I hear on the radio they should have tons of evidence of prosecutorial misconduct. But, the coroner's ruling concerning Sandy Maloney's death (by strangulation) was upheld in 2004 by a review.