According to the charge-level summary in the dataset, there were 520 Possession of Narcotic Drugs charges in Brown County from 2024 through August 2026. Of those, 348 resulted in convictions, 168 were dismissed, and four were resolved in another manner. In other words, approximately two-thirds of the charges resulted in conviction.

 

      Among the possession convictions in the sentencing data, probation was the most common initial disposition. Roughly two-thirds received probation overall. A three-year probation term was particularly common. About 44% of those receiving probation also received some jail as a condition of probation, commonly between 90 and 180 days.

 

      Probation was not the only outcome. Some defendants received straight local-jail sentences, while approximately one-quarter of the convictions resulted in an active state-prison sentence. When prison was imposed, a typical sentence was approximately 18 months of initial confinement followed by two years of extended supervision.

 

      The data also show that sentencing patterns changed over time. In 2024, approximately 19% of the cases resulted in active prison. That increased to approximately 32% in 2025 and 34% in 2026 through August.

 

      That does not necessarily mean judges suddenly became harsher toward drug offenses. The defendants sentenced in later years may have had more extensive criminal histories, more previous revocations, additional charges, different plea agreements, or other aggravating circumstances. The dataset does not presently control for all of those factors.

 

      The sentencing judge also appears to matter. In 2025, for example, the percentage of cases resulting in probation ranged from approximately 30% before one judge to 75% before others. That is a substantial difference. But again, it does not prove that the identity of the judge caused the difference because different judges may have been sentencing different types of defendants and cases.

 

      The prosecutor should not be ignored either. Some prosecutors' cases resulted in probation more frequently than other cases heard by the same judges during the same years, while other prosecutors' cases resulted in probation less frequently. That does not necessarily mean those prosecutors caused the differences. Prosecutors may handle defendants with different criminal histories, plea agreements, companion charges, treatment-court eligibility, or other characteristics that influence sentencing.

 

      Comparing individual defense attorneys presents the same problem. Raw sentencing percentages can make one attorney appear substantially better or worse than another. But when attorney, judge, prosecutor, and sentencing year were considered simultaneously, many of the apparent differences between attorneys became much smaller. The data simply do not contain enough information about criminal histories and case severity to fairly rank individual lawyers by sentencing outcomes.

 

      The comparison between represented and self-represented defendants is more informative.

 

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