Soft-On-Crime Susan Crawford Reduces Sentence for Convicted Bomb Maker
Coddling this criminal could have gotten her husband killed.
In a 2019 case, now-Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford sentenced Madison man Brian Campbell to only two years in prison after he pleaded no contest to charges of possession of improvised explosives and reckless endangerment.
Prosecutors claimed Campbell’s internet search history produced instructions for making explosives and uncovered drawn maps of underground tunnels on University of Wisconsin-Madison’s campus. Campbell faced up to 10 years in prison and extended supervision on the charges of reckless endangerment and up to 6 years on charges of possession of explosives. Authorities found that one of Campbell’s computer passwords was “McVeigh” – notably the name of Timothy McVeigh, one of the masterminds in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City that killed 168 people and left over 680 injured. Campbell’s home was found to have had all the necessary material to carry out an attack of that magnitude.
Crawford's Sentence Undercuts the Plea Deal
Campbell’s attorneys sought to ensure sentencing in the case was based only on facts to which he admitted. Assistant District Attorney John Rice presented evidence showing Campbell’s trespass attempts to the underground tunnel system on UW-Madison’s campus, followed by a 2016 report from UWPD that detailed Campbell had attacked and intimidated students while enrolled at the school.
A plea agreement stipulated that prosecutors could not seek a sentence longer than three years in prison – but Crawford as the overseeing Judge was not bound by the terms of the plea agreement and could have issued a maximum sentence of up to 10 years in prison.
From the bench, Crawford acknowledged Campbell had stockpiled chemicals and built explosives while offering no credible explanation for his actions, noting that the impulsive activity went on for weeks and months.
Against recommendations, Crawford called the plan to attack UW-Madison highly speculative and refused to ban him from the university campus, where her husband serves as a "distinguished member" of the Diversity, Equity, and Educational Achievement program.
Crawford’s sentence only prohibited Campbell from accessing the university’s underground tunnels and the apartment complex where he stored the volatile bomb-making material. Further, Crawford mandated Campbell serve only two years in prison and three years of extended supervision – a slap on the wrist—an unsurprising move for a judge who has spent her career helping criminals "avoid lifelong consequences of conviction."
Wisconsin Deserves Better
Unfortunately, the Campbell case is just one of many examples where Susan Crawford’s lenient sentencing and support for restorative justice jeopardized public safety and security. Crawford has long been a proponent of restorative justice, a radical practice known for circumventing criminal sentencing while instead allowing criminals to face their victims, apologize and promise to never offend again – a wildly unpopular and unfair process that pressures victims to forgive the very person that caused their trauma.
In December 2019, a Dane County jury convicted Kevin Welton on three counts of first-degree sexual assault of a child under the age of 13. Welton faced a maximum sentence up to 100 years in prison followed by 50 years of extended supervision. Instead, Crawford gave him a sentence of 4 years in prison and 6 years of extended supervision. Crawford’s remarks following the sentencing described Welton’s crime as "less severe" than many other cases she has presided over.
In another egregious example, Crawford gave sentences of six and seven years, respectively, to Jacob Johnson and Drew Luber, after they each pled guilty to one count of felony murder for beating a Dane county man and leaving him to die in October of 2018.
Susan Crawford has consistently demonstrated that she is more interested in giving breaks to criminals than delivering justice. With a long record of sympathetic sentencing, two things remain abundantly clear: Susan Crawford is far too dangerous to serve on the state supreme court and victims don’t want criminals to get "alternatives to incarceration" for murders, sexual assault, and bomb making.
(READ MORE: With Susan Crawford, Planned Parenthood is on the Ballot in Wisconsin)
