Waukesha Times

Judge Jennifer Dorow, who presided over the trial of the Waukesha Christmas parade attacker, is running for Wisconsin Supreme Court, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.

"Waukesha County Judge Jennifer Dorow announces Wisconsin Supreme Court candidacy," reporter Corri Hess tweeted. "She joins conservative Dan Kelly and liberal candidates Dane County Judge Everett Mitchell and Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz."

Dorow said she is not running for the state Supreme Court seat simply to capitalize on the exposure she got from the Waukesha parade attack trial, but others who have weighed in disagree, Channel 3000 reported.

“I’m struggling to think of any other reason that she would believe she would be a qualified candidate for the Supreme Court,” Kelly said.

Dorow, who sentenced Darrell Brooks to life in prison for driving an SUV through Waukesha's Christmas parade last year, received an outpouring of fan mail from those who thought she handled the case well. Kelly said that Dorow lacks a “track record of a scholastic and a serious approach to the law."

In 2012, Dorow secured a plea deal for Terrence Greenwald, age 57, who was accused of sexually assaulting two children related to him, according to a TMJ4 article shared by Police, Prostitution, and Politics.

Greenwald, a former Waukesha County sheriff's deputy, was charged with six felony sex crimes and could have faced dozens of years in prison, but Dorow's plea deal got all felonies reduced to misdemeanors, the story said.

"It's a fabulous offer," Dorow said at the time. "It avoids felony convictions, it avoids prison."

Relatives of the children were less enthusiastic about the plea deal. The children's grandfather said, "And him being a retired deputy, at the Waukesha County Sheriff's department, it's outrageous. That guy should be taken out in the back and just pounded to a pulp." The children's mother said of the plea deal, "It takes considerable restraint, and only because of my job and my kids and the fact that I don't want to go to jail, I haven't done anything." 

The criminal complaint alleged that Greenwald had begun abusing the children, one boy and one girl, when they were 6 and 8 years old, and continued the abuse for more than 10 years until they finally told their mother.

As a judge in 2021, Dorow stayed the prison sentence of a "life coach" who was accused of telling his client to take off her clothes and masturbate in front of him, opting to sentence the man to probation instead, The Sconi reported. At the time that Dorow was appointed by Scott Walker, her law firm's website applauded her "impressive track record" and "firsthand knowledge about how prosecutors handle child sex abuse cases," stating that she would defend people accused of "child solicitation, including internet solicitation of a minor, child enticement, statutory rape, sexual assault of a minor, sexual exploitation of a minor," and other sexual crimes.

The state's Supreme Court primary election will take place Feb. 21, and the general election will take place April 4, PBS reported. In addition to Kelly and Protasiewicz, liberal circuit court judge Everett Mitchell of Dane County hopes to fill the open seat.