George Limbeck – Candidate for Sheboygan County Circuit Court Branch 5 Judge
WHBL News conducted interviews with candidates for the two open positions for Circuit Court Judge in Sheboygan County.
Branch 2 Incumbent Judge Kent Hoffmann is retiring at the end of his term, and his successor will be either Attorney James Haasch or Municipal Court Judge Natasha Torry.
Branch 5 Judge Daniel Borowski is not seeking reelection, and so his seat is contested between Attorney George Limbeck and Attorney Cassandra Van Gompel.
Today we are featuring interviews with the two candidates for Sheboygan County Circuit Court Branch 5, Attorneys Cassandra Van Gompel and George Limbeck. Stories featuring Attorney James Haasch and Municipal Court Judge Natasha Torry in the Branch 2 race were published on Monday.
Our second interview in today’s series was with George Limbeck
Interview With George Limbeck: “There is No Substitute for Experience!”
George Limbeck is an attorney with over 36 years spent in Sheboygan County. Limbeck said he began his law practice as an associate for a fellow lawyer in Random Lake in 1986. He moved his practice to the City of Sheboygan in 1989. Limbeck cites experience in the fields of family law, guardianship law, civil litigation, small claims, criminal defense from trial level through appeals and up to winning a case before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
When asked about which of his experiences prepared him to serve as a Circuit Court judge, Limbeck noted firstly the length of his career, and then the variety of law in which he has practiced. Limbeck also said that his long-time residency here gives him a good feel for the people of Sheboygan County, while practicing in 30 of Wisconsin’s 72 Counties provides a good base of knowledge from which to be a judge.
Volunteering, Limbeck said, is something he values. His experience includes serving as a member and, for one year, President of the Board of Directors for Mental Health America in Sheboygan County, and being a volunteer in high school mock trial tournaments during which he also organized a regional tournament.
Limbeck set himself apart from his opponent on April 4th by contrasting his length of experience – 36-1/2 years vs. “I believe six years…”…Limbeck quoted a minimum of five years in order to qualify for being a judge. He pointed to having built his business from the ground up – being responsible for all aspects of a business which he calls “priceless”, as opposed to his opponent’s experience only as a government employee.
We mentioned to Limbeck the statement by Cassandra Van Gompel, his opponent, who set herself apart by saying that “I have no ethical violations…I really do uphold the standard of the law. This is a difficult job and I don’t fold under pressure.” She was referring to the fact that Limbeck was given a public reprimand in 2007 by the Office of Lawyer Regulation, an agency of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, for having erroneously advised a client of his sentencing based upon potential conviction in two counties, and of failing to adequately prepare for the client’s sentencing hearing. Limbeck also had previously been privately reprimanded in connection with another criminal defense matter.
Limbeck responded that he was ethically prohibited from “factually or specifically responding to her ‘ethical’ comment”, but continued “Everyone faces adversity in their life, and it’s from adversity more than success that we really learn who we are, and learn to improve ourselves and become better people…better attorneys. And so, yes, I’ve had adversity, but as…I’ve learned from it, I became a better judge…a better attorney…a better person and, I think quite frankly, it contributes to making me a better judge.
Limbeck said that he’s been thinking about becoming a judge for “10-15 years, and this was the right time for me…” to transition to serving the community as a judge after doing so as an attorney.
When asked where he fell on the scale from liberal to conservative, Limbeck had no hesitation to say “I am a conservative!” He believes that people should be allowed to live their lives with as little government as possible, controlling what they can and can’t do. He said that as the Circuit Courts were created by the legislature through statute, it is important to live up to those statutes and follow the law as written, without trying to extrapolate the law or impose his beliefs. That being said, Limbeck emphasized that defendants are to be judged based upon the individual and their case only, and that the nature of the crime, the defendant’s rehabilitative needs and protection of the community are the only three factors to be used in sentencing.
Limbeck was asked whether he thought that the emphasis of “sending criminals away” by issue-oriented advertising in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race was too much, he said “absolutely”, referring especially to using a candidate’s background as a criminal defense lawyer against them when they were “simply doing their job.”
Limbeck said that he has no ambitions to serve as a Chief Judge for the Circuit Courts, but if they asked, he would consider serving.
With the courts experiencing a well-known backlog of cases and a shortage of staff to handle them, Limbeck said that pay and caseload are two issues that must be addressed in order to clear that backlog. Starting wages are such that “Instead of getting paid $250 an hour, they’re getting paid $70 for a public defender and $100 an hour at the court-appointed rate.” As for caseload he said that it wasn’t unusual to learn of someone “fresh out of law school to be given 250, 300, 350 open cases in the D.A.’s Office.” Addressing these issues, he said, would be a good start to freeing up the system.
When addressing whether or not it was important to render judgements that don’t invite appeal, Limbeck said that it’s not something that can be constitutionally controlled, but that rendering solid judgements that aren’t questioned is a goal. However, he said, that depends upon four parties: “If the police have done their job, if the defense attorney and the prosecuting attorney have done their jobs, and the judge then does their job, and they all do it the way they’re supposed to, then the odds that you’re going to have an appealable issue decrease dramatically.”
Given the number of young offenders in the court system, Limbeck was asked if sentencing needed to be applied in a way that doesn’t simply punish, but also rehabilitate and give the offender a second chance. He said “absolutely” and noted that ballpark figures show a cost of about $40-45 thousand per year per state inmate, but closer to half that to put someone on probation. The monetary cost, he said, is one consideration. Also, he pointed out that anyone under the age of 25 who is convicted of most crimes that are Class-H felonies and lower are eligible for expungement which deletes status as a convicted criminal, but does not erase the record, and that can mean a better outcome all-around.
When asked “Why people should vote for George Limbeck”, he responded “The length of my experience, the breadth of my experience – legal and personal – having been all over the state but focusing on Sheboygan, and, just, the increased wisdom or intelligence that comes with age, and having gone through some adversity, I think puts me in a really good position to be a very good judge for the people of this community.”
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