Legal Question in Administrative Law in Wisconsin

Criminal conviction information is nearly always public and there is little, if any, privacy protection for you in the law regarding one. Exceptions might include juvenile matters or convictions which have been expunged, but with regard to drunken driving convictions out of state, I would recommend telling the truth. Even if you lie on the license application and manage to "slip one past them," odds are that it will eventually come up, causing a much worse problem for you. Lying to governmental agencies is a crime in most states and potentially a felony here in Wisconsin, so it actually carries the potential for prison time. You are therefore better off living with the consequences of the old conviction. One that it 20 years old would not be relevant under current WI law anyway unless picked up a new charge which would be your third or subsequent OWI related offense. For those, they look back for your entire lifetime, in all states (and potentially even would consider overseas convictions). Once you were so charged, odds are that the database searches employed by the authorities these days would pick up your old conviction, unless it was in one of the few states which currently do not share this information nationally with the other states, or who keep sloppy records. Please be aware that my responses to you in the public web forum do not make me your attorney and that I am not representing you or taking any action on your case. These answers are intended for public educational use only and may contain advertising materials. You are welcome to contact me during business hours at my in Racine if you still have questions. Read my past answers at http://www.lawguru.com/answers/search/attorney/jknixon or see me on the web at www.jayknixonlaw.com.