Green Bay Press-Gazette from Green Bay, Wisconsin • Page 5

Opinion Contact the Opinion page editor at (920) 431-8327 Green Bay Press-Gazette A-5 Friday, August 19,2005 In Our View eedl idte for WMgffuI conviction cumg Issue Wrongful convictions Our view The Wisconsin Legislature should adopt task-force recommendations that minimize the chance of someone going to prison for a crime that he or she did not commit 1 1 Recommendations of a task force established after DNA evidence showed that Steven Avery of Two Rivers was wrongfully convicted of sexual assault are now in the form of a legislative bill announced Wednesday. The Wisconsin Legislature should pass it. The bill calls for: A requirement that law enforcement agencies have some kind of written policy on how eye-witness identifications are conducted. An extension of the statute of limitations for sexual assault-related crimes. A policy spelling out what DNA evidence must be preserved in specific cases.

Priority status for DNA testing in potential wrongful conviction cases when a not sexually assault and try to murder a Manitowoc woman as she jogged on the Lake Michigan beach in 1985, the crimes for which he was convicted. The new DNA evidence matched that of a man now serving a 60-year sentence for the sexual assault of another woman. "At the time of the arrest, Avery had a wife, five children and a job," Gov. Jim Doyle said in announcing his support for the bipartisan bill. "When he was released, his wife had divorced him, his children two of (whom) were less than a week old when he was imprisoned were grown and his job was long gone." Although some law enforcement agencies may balk at the proposed requirements, the state has a responsibility to minimize the consin case that of Beth LaBatte, who is serving a life term for the 1991 killings of sisters Ceil Cadigan, 85, and Ann Cadigan, 90, in rural Kewaunee County DNA found on evidence in that case did not match La-Batte's.

The UW law group has filed a motion for a new trial based on the DNA evidence. The justice system fails if even one person is wrongfully convicted. To minimize the chance of that happening, the task force made up of Democratic and Republican lawmakers, judges, prosecutors, defense lawyers, police and sheriffs, academics and a victim advocate came up with its recommendations. They're solid and should become law. ft.

Steven Avery, who was released from prison in 2003 after DNA evidence proved he was wrongfully convicted of sexual assault and attempted murder, greets his cousin Rita Sittman upon his arrival home. File photoGannett Wisconsin Newspapers judge orders it. A requirement that police record interrogations of juveniles and be encouraged to do the same with adult suspects. State grants would help law enforcement agencies buy, install, repair and learn to use the audio and video recording equipment that the bill would require. Avery served 18 years in prison before new DNA evidence revealed that he did Law School that works to free wrongly convicted prisoners, helped Avery win his freedom and is involved in a second Northeastern Wis potential for wrongful convictions in every way it can.

The Wisconsin Innocence Project, a program at the University of Wisconsin People's Forum Doyle digging out from Tommy's mess GREEN BAY Regarding the recent Forum letter criticizing Gov. Doyle's vetoes: Tommy Thompson abused the veto privilege more than anyone else in Wisconsin history, yet that seems to not bother the dit-toheads. Now that Gov. Doyle is faced with the impossible challenge of not raising state taxes while not cutting revenue sharing, while not cutting state employees, while still somehow balancing the state budget the personal attacks are relentless. I personally applaud Gov.

Doyle for doing the best he can do to dig us out of Tommy's mess. Mike Nieft Writers caught up in the Packers' hype ROCKLAND Sometimes I feel that the sports writers at the Green Bay Press-Gazette get too caught up in the Green Bay Packers hype to accurately report what is truly happening on the field. "The Insiders" column on Aug. 15 is a case in point. Writer Rob Demovsky has practically written quarterback J.T.

O'Sullivan off the Joint Finance Committee voted 16-0 to reject the governor's rate reduction and retain the current level. Both houses passed the committee budget but Gov. Doyle found creative ways to defy the Legislature. Doyle also eliminated two provisions the Legislature passed to try to reduce future prescription costs. Why delete provisions that could help the programs save money? Wisconsin pharmacies are being asked to accept the lowest Medicaid rates in the nation.

These cuts will cause reduction or elimination of services like free delivery and compliance packaging, and force some pharmacies to refuse to accept SeniorCare, Medicaid and HIRSP. I urge program recipients, parents and caregivers to contact your legislators and Gov. Doyle to express your support for your pharmacy Steve Wilke, R.Ph Here's the answer to gas-price crisis NEW FRANKEN The causes of the current crisis in oil prices are plentiful. Aside from the obvious cause of American dependence on Arab oil, we also have regressed in fuel-effi- team, saying he "hasn't shown much through training camp and probably will be the odd man out in the quarterback battle." We have to ask: Is he watching the same guys we are? During Thursday's pre-season game, neither Rodgers nor Nail had any success running the team. Only after O'Sullivan came in and drove the team down the field to within Long-well's field goal range did we win the game.

So, give the guy a break. O'Sullivan came through after the other two floundered. Randy Hansen Doyle cut will hurt pharmacies MARINETTE Gov. Doyle's punch below the belt delivered to Wisconsin pharmacies is the third cut in prescription reimbursement in the past five years. My small, independent pharmacy serves a large number of SeniorCare, Medicaid and HIRSP recipients, and will be hit especially hard by the cuts.

Doyle claimed to veto an increase in rates to pharmacies. He actually vetoed simply maintaining the current rate. In February, Doyle submitted the cuts in his budget proposal. Following hearings, the bipartisan THAT CANT BE SGOp See Joe Heller's cartoons at www.greenbaypressgazette.com can pay more for vehicles that cause our increased dependence. Trust me, Hummer owners can afford a little more to buy their trucks if they are putting as much as they are into their gas tanks.

Nicholas Katers paign dollars. The time is now for change, or we will see an exponentially more disastrous fuel crisis than that of 30 years ago. A major piece of legislation that would be effective is an increased sales tax on vehicles with poor fuel effi ciency. The tax would increase on vehicles with worsening efficiency, and the money would be Used to offset state gas taxes. Americans will never be taxed out of buying gasoline, but those who choose to use a majority of the gas ciency standards since the last fuel crisis in the late 1970s.

Our leaders at the state and federal level have shown no interest in helping out the average American while they pander to the energy lobby for cam Pro or con, Wisconsin wind-power arguments just don't add up KENNETH EXW0RTHY Guest columnist reach into our taxpaying pockets big time. What a "pro" argument! Breathtaking! What are the actual cost numbers? He doesn't say. He just compares them to peaking plant costs which are, from what I read, high compared to gas-fired, base-load plants. So how high would the cost of wind power actually be on an absolute, non-subsidized basis? Well, I don't know and your articles don't tell me. It would seem like that number would be an important factor in the argument, pro or con, but the number isn't there! He says that the energy itself is free.

Well, gosh, hydro energy is also free, isn't it? But the dams and flowages and the other in-place costs are enormous, making hydropower not so free. Economic costs carry the day with hydro power and economic costs carry the day with wind power What are they? Indeed, shareholder dollars are at least risk with wind farms have their place. On the broad salt flats of the North Sea, the wind is steady and strong. Windmills have been used successfully and economically there for centuries. Wisconsin plagued by tornadoes, strong thunderstorms, powerful lightning and dead calm is poorly suited for wind farms, but it appears that government fumbling with the energy crisis we face coupled with investor greed will get them here whatever arguments are used.

I despair. Kenneth Exworthy holds a bachelor of science degree from Michigan Technological University and a master's degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both in electrical engineering. He worked in many diverse areas of electrical engineering for 25 years. He spent the last 20 years of his career teaching industrial instrumentation and electronics at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College. During that time, he also consulted in electricity and electronics through his company, Exworthy Engineering.

He retired three years ago. cent of the time acceptable? That appears to be the delivered capacity of the Kewaunee turbines. Do you have any recollection that our Kewaunee nuclear plant put out 520 megawatts for every minute of every hour of every day of 11 months of every year for three decades straight and, over the same span of years, killed no migratory birds, put out no carbon dioxide, no smoke, no sulfur dioxide, no mercury, no soot, no noise, and no nuclear waste? (It is all safely stored at the plant.) Is there some kind of comparison there you might owe your readers? Opponents are attacking wind turbines on solid environmental and economic grounds. It might pay you to put some sensible comments about these grounds in your articles on the subject. The "Pro" article clearly makes the point that the wind turbine builders will MARINETTE lam responding to the editorial and articles about wind power in the Aug.

7 Green Bay Press-Gazette. In the editorial, you conveniently and quickly put aside the fact that government mandates and government subsidies are driving the deployment of windmills. This is not an "opponent it is a fact. Investors in the power companies invest in wind power, not because of some need to do good things for the community, as you seem to imply, but because the subsidies will make them money. You say that "consumers are demanding more power from the grid." This is true, but you and the other correspondents seem to forget that, for every megawatt of usable wind power put in place, there must be another megawatt of idling grid capacity to take up the slack when the wind doesn't blow.

The mills don't the inefficiencies of wind power? Numbers defining the subsidies? Numbers comparing the "footprint" of wind farms per megawatt to that of a fuel power plant? What is the actual cost per peak megawatt installed? How does it compare to the projected cost of WPS' new coal-fired power plant per megawatt delivered power? She would like us to oppose the wind farm development, yet offers no basis for that opposition. How can we worry about the government taking land for wind power unless we can compare it to the amount of land needed for competing strategies? New generation will have to be sited somewhere. She is certainly right about the negative effects that Wisconsin wind farms will have on our future, but to oppose their development in the here-and-now, we need facts and comparisons. In a worldwide sense, wind power; the outright subsidies and tax breaks on depreciation (paid out of my pocket) make this investment a short-term moneymaker. They will surely dump this investment when the time is right and the maintenance bills start to pile up and the 22 percent wind factor becomes apparent.

I suppose when the ROI becomes poor enough, the stocks will default through the "market" to the "private" Social Security accounts the government would like us to buy into. The "Con" article certainly does not help the "con" arguments sound any better than the "Pro" arguments do for their side. I would suppose that Ms. Korinek, being an officer of the opposition group, would have the numbers on the "most expensive power available." She apparently does not. What kind of a "con" group is this anyhow? Are there numbers defining run on peak turbine capacity; they run on delivered megawatts of power.

Maybe you can afford to send everyone home when the wind doesn't blow, but I can assure you that Procter Gamble cannot. The "Ripple Effect" article certainly is confusing. Who are the "they" who "all joined hands in Do you read this stuff? The continuing problem in this article, and the ones that follow it, is that you all confuse peak capacity with delivered capacity. Sure, when the wind blows, the Dodge County project can light 100,000 Green Bay homes, but when the wind doesn't blow, Green Bay goes dark. Is that acceptable? Is having the lights on for 22 per Editorial Board People's Forum Letters OUR MISSION The Press-Gazette strives, as it has since 1915.

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