May 22, 2023 at 11:48 a.m.
Judge denies former sergeant's motion for transfer
Grant, 36, is serving a 90-day jail sentence on a disorderly conduct (domestic abuse) conviction. He was also convicted of felony stalking and will serve three years probation on that charge.
An Oneida County jury acquitted him on a number of other counts following a five-day trial in February.
According to the criminal complaint, he was accused of calling a woman as many as 50 to 150 times a day and entering her home on multiple occasions after he had been asked to leave.
The complaint also alleged the former sergeant made statements such as "I am the law" and "OK, I am the (expletive) cops" when the woman would threaten to call law enforcement.
Some of the episodes took place while Grant was on duty and in uniform working for the sheriff's office, according to trial testimony.
In a moton filed May 8, Grant's attorney Aaron Nelson alleged the Oneida County jail was in contempt of court for causing Grant to be transferred to another jail, leaving him unable to travel to his job.
"Despite this court's order that Mr. Stetson (sic) serve his jail sentence in the 'Local Jail', i.e. the Oneida County Jail, Mr. Stetson (sic) has instead been shipped to a different county far away to serve his jail sentence in the Marquette County Jail. As a result of his transfer to the Marquette County Jail, Mr. Stetson (sic) has effectively been denied the Huber privileges ordered by this Court as he is unable to travel to his job given that he can only practice Huber privileges within the boundaries of Marquette County," the motion reads. "Due to the Oneida County Jail's disobedience of the Judgment of Conviction entered by this Court, Mr. Grant moves this Court to order his immediate transfer from the Marquette County Jail to the Oneida County Jail..."
A footnote clarified that the motion was not a so-called post-conviction motion - although court records show Grant has indicated he intends to pursue post-conviction relief - but "deals strictly with the issue of the alleged contempt of court."
Oneida County sheriff Grady Hartman took exception to the "contempt of court" allegation.
"It is clearly established that a sheriff can house an inmate in another county jail," he wrote in response to a River News request for comment on the motion. "I have exactly the same arguments in this case that I had in the Jeremy Alquist case from 2021. I will let the attorneys argue it out in court but I stand by some very common sense reasons that I used when I came to this decision.
1) Stetson Grant was an employee here and knows our procedures and our safety and security measures.
2) Anything good or bad that happens to Stetson while housed in the Oneida County jail will have the look of impropriety to some in the public. I do not want our staff to be accused of misconduct in these scenarios.
3) Stetson Grant has arrested and had negative contact with some of the other inmates. I have a responsibility to look out for everyone's safety."
"I have not treated the court with contempt and the allegations by the defense attorney are quite outrageous," the sheriff added.
(The Alquist case, which involved a request from an inmate to be transferred from the Oneida County jail to Florence County for the purpose of continued employment, remains pending before an appeals court in Wausau.)
On May 15, Oneida County corporation counsel Mike Fugle filed a "motion to intervene" in order to represent the interests of both the sheriff and the county at the motion hearing.
That motion was granted and all three attorneys - Nelson, Fugle and special prosecutor Karl Kelz of Price County - participated in the hearing before Oneida County circuit judge Mike Bloom. Nelson and Kelz appeared via Zoom while Fugle was present in the courtroom.
"I'm not aware of any statutory ability of a sheriff to transfer somebody out of the jail that he has been sentenced to," Nelson argued, noting that prisoners may only be "removed" in the case of an emergency.
"I appreciate that there's an inference that there's a potential for a problem and rather than wait until it got to an emergency that perhaps that's what the sheriff is saying he did," Nelson continued. "I'm not saying I agree with it, but I understand it. But I don't think a potential is the same as an actual emergency which is required under the statute."
Nelson went on to argue that this practice could lead to judges regularly sending inmates to counties far away from the county where they were convicted, inhibiting them from exercising their Huber privileges.
For his part, Kelz argued the motion "has to fail" because it's sheriffs, not courts, who are authorized to run the jails.
He also noted that Hartman's reasons for transferring Grant were very reasonable.
"(Hartman) made a legitimate decision to transfer him for not only the defendant's safety but the potential safety of the other inmates," he said, adding that Grant is not being denied Huber and can work as long as he secures a job located within one hour of the Marquette County jail.
Fugle stated he was in agreement with the argument Kelz put forth as to why the motion should be denied. He also noted that neither Hartman or the county was served notice relative to the alleged contempt of court.
In his ruling, Bloom noted that there is a "separation of powers between the judicial and the executive branch that goes all the way back, one can argue, to the 1830s when (President) Andrew Jackson commented that (U.S. Supreme Court) Justice (John) Marshall had made his decision now let him enforce it."
"Sheriff Hartman and I don't agree on everything, but among the things we do agree about is the fact that there are some decisions that I get to make and there are some decisions that he gets to make," the judge added, noting that the matter of where Grant is to serve his sentence is a decision Hartman gets to make.
"The bottom line in this case is that the sheriff has the authority to do what he has done and I don't have the authority to tell him not to," he concluded.
After disposing of the motion, Bloom set a hearing on second motion filed by the defense on Thursday.
In the new motion, Nelson asked the court to prevent the Department of Corrections from imposing conditions of probation that are "contrary to the purpose of sentencing."
Specifically, Grant is taking issue with conditions set by the DOC regarding communication with the victim with respect to their common child as well as the department's directive that he not be allowed to attend the child's school and sports activities.
In the motion, Nelson argues the conditions effectively eliminate Grant's "co-parenting/ decision-making abilities..."
The conditions, he alleges, "do not have a nexus to the purpose of his sentence."
The state has yet to respond to the new motion.
A hearing on the motion was scheduled for 3:30 p.m. May 31.
Heather Schaefer may be reached at [email protected].
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