Juwan Wilson shot a man in a Famous Dave’s parking lot in Madison, Wisconsin, while wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet on charges that he bit, beat, and tried to strangle a woman. It looked like the law might be catching up to the man.
But then he caught a break; Wilson ended up in front of Dane County Judge Susan Crawford.
Crawford gave Wilson far under the maximum sentence, dismissed a string of violent charges, and then allowed Wilson to qualify for the state’s “Earned Release Program,” despite the violent offense, court records show.
That program is supposed to be for people with substance abuse problems and was expanded by Tony Evers’ administration; Wilson was convicted of shooting a man he was trying to rob in a drug deal, the criminal complaint says. Police called it a “targeted act of gun violence.”
“A judge ultimately determines whether an individual is eligible for the Earned Release Program. Once an individual has been found eligible, they can discuss suitability for program during their incarceration, ideally during the classification process,” Corrections notes.
Almost predictably, Wilson quickly abused the leniency Crawford gave him and continued preying on the public. A few months after she ordered his release, on Oct. 22, 2020, Fitchburg officers “responded to the 2300 block of Post Road for reports of a person firing multiple rounds at a vehicle driving on Post Road,” police say. It was Wilson.
“Responding officers located multiple shell casings and noted the high degree of concern for public safety based on the incident’s proximity to a number of apartments, residences, an elementary school, and a park. At the time of the incident and his arrest, Wilson was on extended supervision through the Wisconsin Department of Corrections for a previous shooting incident,” police said, linking to the court case that Crawford handled just months before. Wilson was arrested in Chicago by members of the United States Marshals Service Great Lakes Regional Task Force.
According to Fitchburg police, in the most recent case, Wilson “fired multiple rounds, endangering the safety of the many uninvolved community members in the area at the time.”
Today, Juwan Wilson has been freed yet again as a result of another weak sentence by yet another Dane County judge, and he is currently back in the community, Corrections records say.
Crawford is now running for state Supreme Court. However, as Wisconsin Right Now has documented, she has a long history of handing out weak sentences to dangerous offenders; we previously wrote about such a case involving a child molester. We obtained Wilson’s case through an open records request for all of Crawford’s cases, filed with Dane County. Crawford was also the top lawyer for former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle when Doyle’s extremely controversial early release program began springing criminals early from prison.
Juwan Wilson Timeline
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- A Madison woman painted a horrific scene of domestic violence to police on April 8, 2018, in Fitchburg, accusing Wilson, then 21, of biting her, strangling her to the point where she almost lost consciousness, and punching and hitting her more than 10 times. Police found injuries consistent with the attack, including finger impressions on her neck, the criminal complaint says. Wilson was placed on electronic monitoring and released on a $500 signature bond on April 10, 2018 (set by Court Commissioner Brian Asmus). He made it 11 days on bail before shooting a man. The criminal complaint says he went by the nickname “Savage.”
- A criminal complaint filed in June 2018 next accused Wilson of shooting a marijuana dealer he was trying to rob on April 21, 2018, during an illegal drug transaction in the Famous Dave’s parking lot in Madison. On Aug. 1, 2018, Crawford was assigned both cases as a judge. Wilson was out on bail and wearing the GPS bracelet in the domestic violence case at the time.
- On Sept. 19, 2018, Crawford sentenced Wilson to just 2.5 years in prison for first-degree recklessly endangering safety for the shooting, which could have resulted in 12.5 years. He was initially also charged with armed robbery (party to a crime) and bail jumping for possessing the gun, but she threw out the latter two charges, accepting a plea deal. If he had been convicted of all three counts, he would have faced more than 58 years behind bars.
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- As part of the plea deal, Crawford also agreed to throw out all of the charges in the domestic violence case but read them in at sentencing, meaning they could be considered but did not result in conviction. She threw out four charges: felony strangulation/suffocation; intimidate a victim; battery; and disorderly conduct – all with domestic abuse assessments, court records show.
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Wilson didn’t even serve the entire measly 2.5-year prison sentence that Crawford gave him. On May 13, 2000, she ordered the Department of Corrections to release Wilson early from prison to extended supervision because he completed “the Earned Release Program,” court records show. On 5/18/2020, the prison system released him, DOC records show.
On Feb. 4, 2021, Wilson was charged again – with first-degree recklessly endangering safety and possessing a firearm as a felon. That’s the case involving the Fitchburg shooting incident. A different judge, Julie Genovese, sentenced him to four years in prison and again allowed him to qualify for Earned Release.
By Oct. 28, 2021, Corrections had revoked his extended supervision in the Famous Dave’s case, court records say. On Nov. 30, 2023, he was released on extended supervision again and then returned to prison on Dec. 30, 2022.
On March 3, 2024, he was released on extended supervision again (but not by Crawford this time), and is currently living in the community, DOC records show. It’s not clear where he lives. He’s being supervised by the Madison office, but Corrections records say “none reported” for residence.
See the complaint for the dismissed strangulation case here.
The criminal complaint in the Famous Dave’s shooting case says that officers were sent to the Madison establishment for a report of a subject who had been shot. The patient, who identified himself as Tommie Lezy, initially said he had been standing outside and someone drove by and shot him. The victim was later identified as another man through an Illinois ID card. The victim came into the restaurant three times asking for an application but never filled it out.
The victim later told police he heard a “pop pop” and was shot in the leg when he was walking to a bus stop by a person in a car. He was arrested for an active warrant and then said he wanted to be honest about what occurred, the complaint says.
He subsequently said a girl called him and asked for marijuana. He said another man brought the marijuana to Famous Dave’s, and he and the male subject got into a car. There were two subjects in the front, including Wilson, and one pulled out a gun with an extended clip and said, “Give me everything” or something to that effect, the complaint says.
The victim opened the door, rolled out, and was shot. The suspect struck his friend in the head with the handgun at one point.
Police believe Wilson was the shooter; they built their case on GPS data from his electronic monitoring bracelet as well as witness interviews.
A woman told police that Wilson had gone to the drug deal. “She said that Wilson was handed a box and he thought that it was a scam. She stated that Wilson was arguing with the boys. She said that they got out of the car and that was when Wilson shot them,” the complaint says. Another woman told police that Wilson said a “dude” got out of the car and that he shot or “popped” one of them, the complaint noted.
Another witness stated that Wilson tried to take the weed from the dealer. Detective Harris asked when Wilson pulled the gun. The witness stated “that after Wilson got the weed, he pulled the gun on the two individuals. She stated that Wilson was smacking one of the guys with the gun, and it went off,” the complaint said.
In the dismissed strangulation case, Wilson could have faced more than 6 years in prison. That criminal complaint said a woman called police to report that her friend sent her a Facebook message saying to call them. She said Wilson was “crazy obsessive” and that if she had ever received a message, the friend said that it would mean she was afraid of her boyfriend.
An officer went to the woman’s apartment and heard arguing. Wilson’s girlfriend answered the door, “shaking uncontrollably,” crying, and she had “blood on the left cheek of her face.”
The complaint alleges:
The woman told police that Wilson got angry at something on her phone, beat and kicked on the door, forced his way into her bedroom, called her names, and “bit her on the inside bicep of her left arm.”
She said she pushed him off her to get him to stop biting her. Wilson had previously lived in Chicago, the complaint says. She also had a scratch above her eye. He hit her more than 10 times, it alleges, and she told police he squeezed her neck to the point where she almost lost consciousness.
He “began to strangle her again,” she told police, the complaint says. He grabbed her hair and was punching her in the head multiple times, it alleges.
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