Tony Romo’s first court date in Milwaukee County is September 21. He was arrested on July 23.
Most people read those two dates and assume nothing needs to happen in between. In Wisconsin, that assumption is how drivers lose their licence before a judge ever hears a word about whether they were impaired.
Because Romo was not only cited for OWI. According to court records and Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Office body-camera footage reported by TMJ4, he refused a preliminary breathalyzer at the roadside and later refused the evidentiary breath test under Wisconsin’s implied consent law. He was cited for first-offense OWI and for refusing a chemical test.
Those are two different cases. Only one of them waits for September.
The refusal is its own proceeding, with its own deadline
Under Wis. Stat. § 343.305, driving on Wisconsin roads means you have already consented to chemical testing if you are lawfully arrested for OWI. Refusing the evidentiary test triggers an automatic 12-month licence revocation that is separate from, and stacked on top of, anything that happens in the OWI case.
Here is the part that catches people:
You have 10 days from the Notice of Intent to Revoke to demand a refusal hearing. Miss it and the revocation takes effect automatically, with no right to challenge it.
Ten days. Not the court date. If the notice was served at arrest on 23 July, that window closes in early August, roughly seven weeks before the first appearance on the OWI itself.
We have no involvement in Mr. Romo’s case and no idea what his lawyers have filed. That is rather the point: by the time most people are watching a case, the deadline that matters most has often already passed quietly.
Two refusals, two different rules
This is the distinction almost everyone gets wrong, and Romo’s stop contains both halves of it.
| Roadside PBT | Evidentiary test | |
|---|---|---|
| Statute | § 343.303 | § 343.305 |
| When | Before arrest, at the roadside | After a lawful arrest |
| Refusing it | Does not trigger implied-consent revocation on its own | Triggers automatic 12-month revocation |
Refusing the little handheld device at the roadside is not the same act as refusing the test at the station, and they carry different consequences. People routinely believe they have “refused everything” or “refused nothing” when the truth is somewhere in between.
What a refusal hearing can actually argue
The hearing is deliberately narrow. Under § 343.305(9)(a)5 it is limited to three questions:
- Did the officer have probable cause to believe the driver was operating while intoxicated?
- Was the Informing the Accused notice read correctly?
- Did the driver actually refuse the requested test?
That is the entire list. Not whether you were truly impaired. Not whether the stop was lawful.
The narrowness cuts both ways, and it is why these hearings are worth having. A garbled or incomplete Informing the Accused read, or a response that was hesitation rather than a refusal, can defeat the revocation outright even when the underlying OWI case is strong. Small factual wins matter more here than anywhere else in an OWI file.
Why refusing is not the clever move people think it is
There is a persistent piece of bar-stool advice that refusing is smart because it denies the State a number. It is half true, and the half that is wrong is expensive.
What refusing does get you: no BAC figure in evidence, which can genuinely weaken the prosecution’s OWI case.
What it costs you: an automatic 12-month revocation on top of any OWI penalty. A second refusal is 24 months, a third 36. And the refusal itself counts as a prior offence for future OWI charges, so a refusal today can make a charge years from now a criminal one rather than a civil forfeiture.
For a first-offence driver in Wisconsin, that last point is the one that tends to land. A standard first OWI here is a civil forfeiture, not a crime. A refusal attached to it is what can make the next one criminal.
If you refused a test in Racine, Kenosha or Walworth County
Do this today rather than at your court date:
- Find the Notice of Intent to Revoke. It is the piece of paper that starts the 10-day clock, and it is easy to mistake for a receipt.
- Count the days from that notice, not from your court date and not from the arrest if they differ.
- Request the hearing in writing before the window closes. Waiving it locks in the revocation under § 343.305(10)(a) and gives up a forum that can also be useful to the OWI defence.
- Have one lawyer handle both cases. The refusal hearing and the OWI share facts, and they should share a strategy.
We litigate refusal hearings and file same-day requests across Racine, Kenosha and Walworth counties. Cafferty, Scheidegger & Johnson, S.C. has defended OWI in southeastern Wisconsin since 1994, from 840 Lake Avenue in Racine and 7001 30th Avenue in Kenosha. The consultation is free and the phone is answered around the clock at (262) 632-5000.
If you are inside the 10 days, call now. If you think you might be outside it, call anyway: the notice date is not always the date people assume.
Related: Refusal hearings in full · Administrative suspension · First-offence OWI · Can you call a lawyer during an OWI stop?
This article discusses publicly reported facts about a pending case for the purpose of explaining Wisconsin law. Nothing here is a comment on Mr. Romo’s guilt or defence, and nothing here is legal advice about your own case.
