Gregory B. Gill, Jr.

Authored the majority. An agency-review case where Gill kept a strict line between two ways courts evaluate agency decisions—close scrutiny on legal conclusions, deference on factual findings. Done properly, the dual-track framework prevents agencies from rewriting statutes in the name of expertise.

Kohler wanted a permit to build on wetlands. The state environmental agency turned it down. Gill walked through the case carefully. He took a close look at the agency's legal reasoning. He gave the agency more leeway on the science and facts. The result was that the agency's denial held up, but only because the work checked out. That two-track method keeps state agencies inside what the law actually allows them to do.

Authored the majority. A Fourth Amendment case where a police dog entered a vehicle through an open door. Gill held the entries were warrantless searches under controlling U.S. Supreme Court precedent—and refused to manufacture a new "instinct exception" to make them lawful. He showed the exception would lose on the facts even if it existed.

Police stopped a woman for a traffic violation and called over a drug-sniffing dog. Each time the handler walked the dog around the car, the dog entered through the open driver's-side door. The dashboard camera showed the handler's body blocked the dog from going farther around the vehicle. He never pulled the leash. He let the dog stay inside for almost 40 seconds. The state argued the dog "acted on instinct," so the search was legal. Gill disagreed. U.S. Supreme Court rulings say police physically entering a car is a search. He did not need to decide whether Wisconsin should adopt a new "instinct exception" the state asked for. Even if it existed, it would fail here—the handler set the dog up to enter. Gill applied the existing rules and resolved the case on the narrowest ground.

Authored the majority. A man tried to buy a handgun in Wisconsin in 2022. His 1994 misdemeanor domestic-violence conviction had been expunged in 2019, but the DOJ denied the purchase under federal law. Gill faithfully applied a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision holding that Wisconsin expungement removes the records but doesn't invalidate the conviction itself. The result cut against the gun purchaser—reached because the law required it, not because of any policy preference.

A man with an old conviction wanted his gun rights restored. Federal law has an exception for convictions that have been "expunged or set aside." Gill had to figure out what that phrase means. He stayed close to the words, used outside cases as a check rather than as a shortcut, and reached a result that the law actually supports. That is the right way to handle a politically charged case—stick to the text.

Joined the majority. The court was sua sponte expanded from a single judge to three because the panel concluded the issue warranted full consideration—itself a signal that the panel took the deadline seriously. Gill's third vote anchored the result: when the legislature explicitly preserved jurisdiction in one part of the commitment scheme but not in another, that silence is meaningful. The reading protects individuals facing one of the most serious deprivations of liberty short of incarceration.

Joined the majority. A property-insurance dispute where the insurer argued a downtown Green Bay building was "vacant"—and therefore excluded from water-damage coverage—because the owner had no current tenants. Gill's vote helped reach the result that established doctrine, not insurer preference, dictated: when a policy term is ambiguous, it is construed against the insurer who drafted it. The owner's active leasing operations qualified as customary operations.