State seeks emergency order to continue 'cocaine mom' law against 25 pregnant women

Bruce Vielmetti | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Wisconsin's attorney general on Tuesday asked a federal appeals court for an emergency order allowing the state to continue action against 25 women under its so-called cocaine mom law, recently found unconstitutional, while the state asks the U.S. Supreme Court to get involved.

A federal judge in Madison last month sided with Tamara Loertscher, who filed a civil rights suit after she was jailed 18 days while pregnant after admitting past drug use to officials in Taylor County and refusing to voluntarily check into a residential treatment center. Loertscher was represented by the National Advocates for Pregnant Women.

In a motion to the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals, state Solicitor General Misha Tseytlin wrote that he intends to ask the nation's highest court to block U.S. District Judge James Peterson's injunction against enforcement of the law.

The 1998 law lets adult pregnant women suspected of current or past drug or alcohol use that could affect their fetus be held in secure custody and subjected to involuntary medical treatment. Social workers can initiate confidential legal action in children's court; lawyers get appointed for a woman's fetus.

The 7th Circuit already denied a stay of the injunction. Tseytlin says he's not asking for reconsideration of that, only a temporary stay of the injunction as to the 25 cases. Without the stay, he said, counties will have to dismiss or adjourn cases and "discontinue services to women currently receiving" them.

Because of preparing the petition to the Supreme Court, Tseytlin also seeks an extra week to file the state's opening brief in the main appeal to the 7th Circuit.