Revoked drivers avoid criminal charges; legal loophole

MILWAUKEE - It's against the law to drive without a valid license in Wisconsin. But it's almost never a crime, no matter how many times you get caught.

FOX6 Investigators uncovered a loophole in state law that allows some of the most dangerous drivers to keep getting behind the wheel with little to no consequences -- even after they've seriously hurt someone else.

Tina Feiertag was trying to cross 16th Street near National Avenue in September 2022 on her way to a bus stop.

"All of the sudden I heard an engine rev," Feiertag said.

Moments later, Feiertag was face-to-face with a driver who never should have been on the road.

"I remember getting hit. I don’t remember flying," Feiertag said.

A nearby surveillance camera captured what Feiertag's memory did not. A maroon, four-door Acura TL turned blindly into the intersection, scooped the 60-year-old pedestrian off of her feet, and sent her through the air and onto the hard pavement.

"I just rolled over to the curb hoping not to get hit," Feiertag recalled.

The driver paused, then drove away, leaving Feiertag face down with internal bleeding, a broken leg and a fractured spine.

"Laying in the street like a piece of garbage," Feiertag said. "That’s what I felt like. I was left in the street like garbage."

A year-and-a-half later, 37-year-old Quinton Ward is still driving illegally.

"Have you learned anything from this hit-and-run crash?" FOX6 Investigator Bryan Polcyn asked Ward, moments after Ward fired an attorney in his criminal case. 

According to a criminal complaint, Ward told police he "panicked," drove away, then re-painted the car white.

Two months later, Milwaukee police stopped Ward in a white, four-door Acura TL. Body camera video obtained by the FOX6 Investigators shows Ward's explanation for the car's lack of a license plate.

"My girlfriend just got the car," Ward said.

But when police discovered it was the same car wanted in the Feiertag hit-and-run, they arrested Ward, and prosecutors charged him with felony hit-and-run causing great bodily harm.

"I used to be able to go to the kids’ soccer games," Feiertag said outside the courtroom, a cane by her side. "I can’t walk across the playground. Go to State Fair. I can’t do that anymore."

Ward declined to talk to the FOX6 Investigators as he waited for an elevator to exit the courthouse.

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"You can turn and face the other way," Polcyn said. "But the reality is, this affected somebody and affected somebody’s life."

"Why are you talking to me?" Ward asked.

"Why are you still driving?" Polcyn responded.

Just two weeks before the crash, police stopped Ward in the same car for driving in a bicycle lane, unsafe passing and operating while revoked. 

"Try to get a license," the officer told Ward before sending him on his way.

"Yeah, I definitely will," Ward replied. "I'm working on that."

Public records show Ward is nowhere close to having a valid license. He has been driving illegally for years and has racked up more than $6,000 in unpaid fines in Milwaukee alone.

Since 2019, police and sheriff's deputies have pulled Ward over at least 22 times for things like speeding, unsafe passing, running red lights, and reckless driving. Seven of those stops occurred after he bailed out of jail for the hit-and-run.

"You’re doing 73, the speed limit’s 35," an officer told Ward. 

"I'm in a rush," Ward replied, "I’m trying to get to my grandma... to the hospital."

It's an explanation Ward has given before.

"I’m on my way to see my grandma in the hospital," Ward said during another traffic stop. "I just picked my uncle up from the hospital," Ward told yet another officer. He has also told police his baby's mother was in labor, his girlfriend is pregnant, and he had to use the bathroom. No matter the excuse, Ward wasn't supposed to be behind the wheel at all. "I’m not gonna lie to you," Ward routinely told police. "I ain't got no license."

The State of Wisconsin suspended Ward's license years ago. In 2018, his license was officially revoked for being a habitual traffic offender.

"Your driving record is quite lengthy," one officer noted in a 2023 traffic stop.

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You see, Quinton Ward is not just a revoked driver. According to Milwaukee police, he is dangerous. One officer wrote in his report that Ward showed an "utter disregard for human life." 

"That individual should be incarcerated. Period," said Michael Murphy, the former chair of Milwaukee's Reckless Driving Task Force. "He’s putting your life, my life, our family’s life at risk. And he doesn't care."

But Milwaukee County Sheriff's Inspector Doug Holton said taking people like Ward off the street is easier said than done.

"I think sometimes we feel a little hamstrung," Holton said. "The laws we have right now really aren’t working."

Holton is in charge of the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Office Patrol Division. He said most unlicensed drivers get a ticket. Nothing more.

When one of Holton's deputies stopped Ward last year, body camera video showed the deputy explaining why she was not calling for a tow truck.

"Right now, you’re legally parked," the deputy said. "So I don’t have to tow the car. So I'm going to dip."

The deputy returned to her squad and pulled away, leaving Ward behind the wheel of his car at a gas pump.

"We’re not naïve enough to think that he’s not just going to drive off," Holton said, but he added that resources are limited.

Milwaukee police declined our request for an interview, but data we obtained from MPD shows just how pervasive the problem is. Between 2019 and 2023, Milwaukee police stopped 27,518 different drivers at least once for operating while suspended, revoked or without a license at all. Nearly 7,500 were caught twice. 596 were stopped at least five times. And 41 drivers were caught ten times or more. That's 41 drivers caught driving illegally at least ten times in just five years.

Quinton Ward has been caught operating while revoked not less than twenty times since 2019.

"There’s no accountability right now," Holton said.

Under most circumstances, driving with a suspended or revoked license in Wisconsin is not a crime, no matter how many times you do it.

"There has to be accountability and consequences," Murphy said.

It hasn't always been this way. Prior to 1997, it was a misdemeanor to operate a motor vehicle with a suspended or revoked license. Repeat offenses escalated into felonies. But retired municipal judge Jim Gramling said that system was a mess.

"One whole branch of the circuit court was devoted to driving while suspended cases," Gramling said. 

Gramling was especially concerned with the impact that the law was having on drivers who were were not necessarily dangerous, just poor. 

"It was people who were simply caught in an economic downward spiral," Gramling said.

Most license suspensions are caused not by dangerous driving, but for failure to pay a fine on a previous citation.

"That conduct, in and of itself, doesn’t threaten anybody," Gramling said.

In 1995, Governor Tommy Thompson appointed Gramling to a statewide task force that recommended a major change in state law. It made operating while suspended a traffic ticket, but it left driving while revoked a crime.

"You get revoked for more serious reasons," Gramling said.

In 2011, state lawmakers went a step further, reducing the penalty for operating while revoked as well. Now, it's only a crime if the underlying reason your license was revoked was for driving drunk. That created a loophole in state law, which is illustrated by a traffic stop in March 2023 when Ward was clocked at 73 miles per hour in a 35 mile per hour zone.

"You were going way too fast," the officer said.

The officer found Ward's license was revoked for driving dangerously.

"So that’s the plus side you have going for you here. If it was revoked for an OWI, you’d be going to jail right now. Because it’s only for your driving record, it’s just a ticket here," the officer is heard in body camera video.

"Only for your driving record," Polcyn repeats.

"Yeah," Murphy said. "I mean, that's where people get very frustrated."

Republican State Senator Van Wanggaard wants to swing the pendulum all the way back.

"Should driving while suspended or revoked be a criminal offense?" Polcyn asked.

"Yes, absolutely," Wanggaard replied.

"Even on the first offense?" Polcyn asked.

"Yes," Wanggaard answered.

Last fall, Wanggaard introduced Senate Bill 404, which would have made driving while suspended or revoked a misdemeanor the first time you're caught.

"Well, that’s strong," Holton said, concerned it would be difficult to enforce. "Like every agency, we’re limited in our resources."

Legal Action of Wisconsin says Wanggaard's bill would create more than 100,000 new criminal cases annually, across the state.

"You’re not going to lock up a hundred thousand people in the State of Wisconsin for that offense," Murphy said. 

Murphy is looking for middle ground.

"There has to be a balance," Murphy said.

Gramling said the state should limit suspensions and revocations to those who are truly dangerous, not just for unpaid fines or offenses having nothing to do with dangerous driving.

"Suspend fewer people, but suspend them for better reasons?" Polcyn asked.

"Absolutely," Gramling said.

Then, focus on the most persistent offenders.

"Address the repeaters," Gramling said. 

"Perhaps second or third or more becomes a misdemeanor," Holton suggested.

"After the second, third, fourth offense, it needs to be a criminal offense," Wanggaard agreed.

Until then, there's little to stop them from doing to someone else what Ward is charged with doing to Tina Feiertag.

"I feel like the life I had, the plans I had have been destroyed and taken from me," Feiertag said. 

Senator Wanggaard's bill has run out of time this session. The state legislature has adjourned for the year. The City of Milwaukee supported the bill, with the approval of Mayor Cavalier Johnson. However, it faced strong opposition from the ACLU, the State Bar of Wisconsin, and Legal Action of Wisconsin. Wanggaard's staff says he plans to try again next session.

In the meantime, Gramling said the courts play a role, too. When Quinton Ward was arrested and charged with felony hit-and-run, he posted $7,500 cash bail. Gramling said the court could order Ward not to drive illegally as a condition of his pre-trial release. If that had happened, any new traffic stop could have sent him back to jail.

Instead, police have pulled Ward over seven more times since he posted bail. And every time, they let him go. He is due back in court April 2, 2024.