Which court hears your case. A Grant County ordinance ticket, or a first OWI, is a civil forfeiture case; Wisconsin makes a first OWI a crime only when a child under 16 was a passenger. Such cases would go to a municipal court in a community that has one, but because none is listed for Grant County, they are filed with the Grant County Circuit Court, and the court and date printed on the citation control. Crimes never go anywhere else: misdemeanors, criminal traffic (repeat OWI, revoked-license driving) and felonies are all Lancaster circuit court cases from start to finish. The two judges in Branch I and Branch II share the criminal, civil, family and juvenile calendars, and a treatment court operates out of the courthouse.

Where pretrial inmates are held. The Sheriff runs the Grant County Jail in the same complex on Highway 35/61/81 that houses the Sheriff's Office and Social Services. Platteville, Lancaster, Boscobel, Fennimore and the other local departments, plus university police in Platteville and state troopers, bring arrested adults there. They stay until a judge or commissioner sets release terms and they post any cash bail, or until their case ends. The Sheriff's Office answers custody questions 24 hours a day at (608) 723-2157.

• Grant County Circuit Court (Branches I and II) and Clerk of Circuit Court, Grant County Courthouse, 130 West Maple Street, P.O. Box 110, Lancaster, WI 53813; Clerk (608) 723-2752
• Grant County District Attorney, 130 West Maple Street, Lancaster, WI 53813, (608) 723-4237; victim-witness (608) 723-2462
• Grant County Sheriff's Office, 8820 Highway 35/61/81, P.O. Box 506, Lancaster, WI 53813, (608) 723-2157 (24 hours)
• Grant County Jail, Sheriff's Office building, 8820 Highway 35/61/81, Lancaster, WI 53813; call the Sheriff's Office at (608) 723-2157
• Wisconsin State Public Defender, Lancaster office (home office for Grant, Iowa, Crawford and Richland cases), Suite A, 207 W. Maple St., a block from the courthouse, (608) 401-2030
• Grant County Department of Social Services (juvenile intake and juvenile court worker), 8820 Highway 35/61/81, P.O. Box 447, Lancaster, WI 53813, (608) 723-2136

For practical purposes, Grant County is a one-courthouse county. Whether a ticket comes from a Platteville college street, a Cassville river landing or a Highway 18 stop near Fennimore, the case ends up in Lancaster.

Circuit court

• Grant County Circuit Court, Grant County Courthouse, 130 West Maple Street, Lancaster, WI 53813. Two branches: Branch I and Branch II. The Clerk of Circuit Court (P.O. Box 110) keeps criminal, traffic and forfeiture records, takes payments and confirms court dates at (608) 723-2752.
• Grant County Treatment Court, coordinator at 130 West Maple Street, (608) 723-1738

Municipal courts

The Wisconsin Court System's municipal court directory, in its 2021 edition, lists no court for any Grant County city, village or town, including Platteville, Lancaster, Boscobel, Fennimore, Cuba City, Cassville, Potosi, Dickeyville, Hazel Green and Muscoda. Platteville's police department confirms the practical result for the county's largest city: it collects its own parking tickets, but every other city citation is handled by the Grant County Clerk of Circuit Court. A community could still form or join a municipal court later, so the citation is the final word on where to appear. If one does, that court would hear only ordinance cases with forfeiture penalties; it could not jail anyone for the violation, though unpaid forfeitures can bring a suspension or jail, and in certain situations a defendant can have the matter moved to circuit court.

Prosecutor, defense and youth services

• Grant County District Attorney, 130 West Maple Street, Lancaster, WI 53813, (608) 723-4237; victim-witness coordinator (608) 723-2462
• State Public Defender, Lancaster: 207 W. Maple St., Suite A, (608) 401-2030
• Grant County Department of Social Services, 8820 Highway 35/61/81, Lancaster, WI 53813, (608) 723-2136

Law enforcement

• Grant County Sheriff's Office, 8820 Highway 35/61/81, Lancaster, WI 53813, (608) 723-2157
• Platteville Police Department, 165 North 4th Street, Platteville, WI 53818
• Cuba City Police Department (city straddles the Lafayette County line), 108 N. Main St., (608) 744-3575
• Lancaster, Boscobel and Fennimore police departments
• Bloomington part-time police, 110 Prospect Street, Bloomington, WI 53804, (608) 732-8395
• Village departments in communities such as Cassville, Potosi, Dickeyville, Hazel Green and Muscoda; the University of Wisconsin-Platteville police on campus; deputies everywhere else

Adults arrested on state charges by any of these agencies are taken to the Grant County Jail, where staff explain how to post bail.

A university town brings its own caseload: in Platteville, misdemeanors often involve underage or heavy drinking, fights and disorderly conduct on weekend nights, and thefts from apartments and stores. Elsewhere in Grant County the docket leans toward OWI arrests on Highways 18, 35, 61 and 151, domestic disputes, and thefts from farms and businesses.

Booking and the first appearance

Some Grant County misdemeanor suspects are simply cited and sent home; others are booked in Lancaster and let out within hours on a signature bond, signing that they will come back and obey the listed conditions. Release after a domestic abuse arrest triggers a statutory 72-hour period of no contact with the alleged victim, which the victim can waive. Anyone not released appears before a Grant County judge or court commissioner, often by video from the Grant County Jail, normally within about 48 hours; at that hearing the complaint is checked for probable cause and the court chooses release terms, either a signed promise or cash. There are no bondsmen in Wisconsin; relatives or the defendant pay any cash themselves, at the jail or at the clerk's counter.

How Grant County misdemeanors are graded

• Class A: as many as 9 months in county custody and a fine as large as $10,000. Lancaster prosecutors most often file this grade for battery, for criminal trespass to a dwelling, and for small thefts up to $2,500.
• Class B: the cap is 90 days and $1,000. Disorderly conduct fits here, and a domestic abuse designation is attached when it involves a partner or family member.
• Class C: the cap is 30 days and $500.
• Second OWI in a ten-year period: criminal, with mandatory jail from five days up to six months and a fine, revocation, an assessment and an ignition interlock. A first OWI in Grant County is decided as a forfeiture. The penalty is $150 to $300 plus costs, six to nine months of lost driving privileges and an assessment; an interlock is added if the driver blew 0.15 or higher or declined the test.

Defense lawyers and results

The State Public Defender's Lancaster office, a block from the courthouse at (608) 401-2030, screens applicants under a demanding financial standard; jail staff can also pass along an application. A person who fails that standard yet cannot hire a lawyer may ask a Grant County judge to appoint counsel paid by the county. Typical endings are a plea agreement, a deferred prosecution agreement or a dismissal, and penalties include fines, probation and jail with Huber release for work or school. The county's treatment court is an option in some cases driven by substance use. A misdemeanor jury in Grant County has six members. Expect two to six months.

Grant County felonies frequently involve methamphetamine, heroin or fentanyl brought in from Dubuque and other cities across the river, burglaries and thefts from rural properties, embezzlement, serious batteries, and repeat OWI.

From complaint to verdict

1. Complaint. The District Attorney's office files a criminal complaint in circuit court.
2. Initial appearance. The Lancaster court sets bail and conditions. A defendant who cannot pay waits in the Grant County Jail.
3. Preliminary hearing. A Grant County judge listens to enough evidence to decide if a felony probably occurred and the defendant probably committed it. Wisconsin requires this hearing within 10 days when cash that the defendant cannot afford is keeping them in jail, and within 20 days in other cases; waiving it is common.
4. Information and arraignment. The DA files an information as the formal charge, and at arraignment the defendant enters a plea.
5. Plea negotiation or trial. Pleas end most cases. For a felony trial, 12 Grant County residents sit as jurors and their verdict has to be unanimous. Once a felony defendant demands a speedy trial, the state generally has 90 days to begin it.
6. Sentencing. In many cases the judge first orders a presentence investigation.

Maximum penalties

• Burglary, Class F: 12 years 6 months in prison.
• Theft above $2,500 and up to $5,000, Class I: 3 years 6 months. Above $5,000 and up to $10,000, Class H: 6 years. Higher amounts, Class G or above.
• Possession with intent to deliver: the class depends on the substance and quantity and can reach Class C, with up to 40 years.
• Substantial battery, Class I: 3 years 6 months. Aggravated battery, Class H or E: 6 or 15 years.

Grant County prison sentences, like all Wisconsin ones, combine a stretch of confinement with a later stretch of extended supervision; parole has not existed for crimes since 1999. Some inmates leave confinement early by completing Challenge Incarceration or the Substance Abuse Program, if the sentencing judge allowed it. A term of one year or less is served in the Lancaster jail rather than state prison. Grant County defendants who qualify get attorneys through the State Public Defender, either staff lawyers from Lancaster or private lawyers on its appointment list. Expect a Grant County felony to take between six months and a year.

Violent felonies are uncommon in Grant County. Local investigators usually lean on the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation and state crime lab scientists when one occurs. Large cash bail amounts are typical, and the constitution, as amended in 2023, now lets the judge weigh the chance that a defendant charged with a violent crime would seriously hurt someone. Defendants who cannot satisfy the conditions are held in the Grant County Jail until trial or plea.

Sentencing ranges

• First-degree intentional homicide, Class A: life imprisonment is required. The Lancaster judge decides whether the defendant will ever be eligible for extended supervision and, if so, after how many years.
• Second-degree intentional homicide, Class B: 60 years at most; first-degree reckless homicide, also Class B, has the same 60-year limit.
• First-degree sexual assault, Class B: 60 years at most; for certain crimes against children, the law fixes a minimum prison term.
• Armed robbery, Class C: 40 years at most. Robbery, Class E: 15 years at most.

The death penalty has been outlawed in Wisconsin since 1853.

Timeline and victims

These prosecutions generally take one to two years. In a closely knit county, pretrial publicity may lead the parties to ask about selecting jurors from another county. Victims in Grant County hold constitutional rights under the 2020 Marsy's Law amendment, including notice and the chance to speak; for help, they can call the victim-witness coordinator at (608) 723-2462 helps them through the process. The most serious cases are assigned to experienced defense lawyers through the State Public Defender.

Delinquency cases involving Grant County children 10 through 16 are heard by a circuit judge in Lancaster acting as the juvenile court. Since Wisconsin's adult system begins at 17, a 17-year-old (a university freshman, say) faces adult court and can be detained at the Grant County Jail.

Intake through Social Services

The Grant County Department of Social Services, 8820 Highway 35/61/81 in Lancaster ((608) 723-2136), handles juvenile intake through its juvenile court worker. The juvenile court worker may resolve a referral informally or through a deferred prosecution agreement; if formal charges seem needed, the District Attorney decides whether to file a delinquency petition.

If a child must be detained

Without its own secure juvenile unit, Grant County relies on outside centers, commonly the La Crosse County Juvenile Detention Center or the Dane County Juvenile Detention Center. When intake orders a Grant County child held, a custody hearing with a judge or juvenile court commissioner generally has to follow within 24 hours, though Saturdays, Sundays and holidays do not count toward that limit. The State Public Defender represents children in these cases regardless of the family's finances under the adult test.

Range of outcomes

• An informal resolution, a deferred prosecution agreement, or a consent decree.
• A delinquency adjudication with supervision, services, restitution or community work.
• Placement away from home, including Type 2 residential care.
• At the far end, which few Grant County youths reach, a Serious Juvenile Offender order or Type 1 secure care in Irma at Copper Lake School (girls) or Lincoln Hills School (boys).

Youths in adult court

Grant County prosecutors may request a waiver to adult court, ordinarily for youths at least 14 and occasionally for younger children facing very serious charges. A few categories skip juvenile court entirely. Homicide charges are the main one: from age 10, a youth accused of first-degree intentional homicide (or trying to commit it), of felony murder, or of first-degree reckless homicide is an adult defendant from day one. Some repeat juvenile offenders charged with specified crimes also start in adult court. Juvenile records are generally confidential.

Grant County is in the Western District of Wisconsin, and federal cases from Platteville, Lancaster or the river towns are heard about 75 miles away in Madison. The State Public Defender's Lancaster office does not appear in federal court; indigent federal defendants receive a Federal Defender or an appointed panel attorney.

• Federal court: clerk of the U.S. District Court for the Western District, 120 N. Henry St., Rm. 320, Madison, (608) 264-5156
• Prosecutor: the United States Attorney, W.D. Wis., 222 W. Washington Ave., Ste. 700, Madison, (608) 264-5158
• Defense: Federal Defender Services of Wisconsin, 22 E. Mifflin St., Ste. 1000, Madison, (608) 260-9900, with Criminal Justice Act panel lawyers taking conflict cases

When Grant County cases go federal

Federal charges commonly grow out of drug pipelines running through the tri-state area around Dubuque, possession of guns by people with felony convictions or other disqualifications, bank robbery, child exploitation, and fraud. Along the Mississippi, federal refuge lands may bring some offenses under federal jurisdiction, though state charges usually remain possible. Statewide, Public Law 280 places crimes on most tribal land in state court; the Menominee Reservation is the notable exception.

What federal court looks like

After a federal arrest, the defendant first appears before a magistrate judge in Madison. There is no cash bail schedule; under the Bail Reform Act, the judge either imposes conditions enforced by Pretrial Services or orders detention, and a contested detention hearing ordinarily follows within three court days of the government's motion. Thirty days is the usual window between a federal complaint and a grand jury indictment. The Speedy Trial Act then targets trial within 70 days, a deadline Grant County defendants often waive or see extended.

Federal cases from Grant County mostly end in guilty pleas; those who go to trial need all twelve jurors to agree before any verdict. The judge sentences using the probation office's presentence report, the advisory Guidelines and any mandatory minimum. Because federal parole is gone, a Bureau of Prisons inmate serves about 85 percent of the term before moving to supervised release. Any appeal from the Madison court is taken to the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. Juveniles seldom face federal charges.

Finding a federal prisoner

Grant County families looking for a sentenced relative can use the Federal Bureau of Prisons inmate locator; it works with either a name or a register number. Before trial, some federal defendants are boarded in county jails under U.S. Marshals agreements, and such a person can also turn up on that county jail's inmate list.