We Must Get To Bottom Of Wisconsin State Supreme Court Mess

‘Now that the mess has been scattered all over the place let’s make sure we clean it up once and for all.’

Isn’t that a message a parent might make in a rather determined way to a child after something that need not have occurred takes places, and then requires a remedy to make sure it never happens again?

The same parental tone and approach needs to be made by the citizens of Wisconsin to the members of the State Supreme Court.

When I can google the Justice Prosser choke-hold story and find it is making headlines all over the nation then it is time to get this mess investigated and sorted out.

As such, I  am pleased to know that two separate investigations are now underway to ascertain what transpired among the members of the court.

The separate probes are being run by the Dane County Sheriff’s Office and the Wisconsin Judicial Commission, which oversees the state’s judicial ethics code. The sheriff’s investigation was launched Monday; the commission’s was authorized Friday and publicly acknowledged Monday.

“After consulting with members of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, I have turned over the investigation into an alleged incident in the court’s offices on June 13, 2011, to Dane County Sheriff Dave Mahoney,” Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs said in a statement.

The sheriff’s office in a statement acknowledged it was taking over the case, but declined further comment.

All members of the court should bend over backwards to amplify and illuminate the issues that have led for the dysfunctional nature of the court to occur in the first place, and then grow to such an extent as to cause a statewide embarrassment.

This is not a good time for the political and democratic institutions in this state.  All year-long there has been a continuing eroding of confidence and support in the systems that are some of the bedrock foundations of our society.  From legislative rancor to the personal animosity on the court there is much to despair over every morning when reading the newspaper.

And it really must come to an end.

Therefore the parties that are investigating what happened to make Justice Prosser snap must get all the facts and present them to the public.  If there needs to be some house cleaning, or group therapy sessions, or a collective demand to ‘lets play nice’…once thing is clear.  What has been allowed to take place must now end.

No one wants to know that our Supreme Court is making headlines for all the wrong reasons.  Lets move forward aggressively with the investigations and then allow for a complete report to be made public.   There should be no sugar-coating or cosmetics applied.  Let the chips fall where they may. 

The public deserves an honest account of what happened, and how it is to be remedied.

Supreme Court Justice David Prosser, Ann Walsh Bradley Episode Pathetic And Damaging

“The Court is now in session.  Will the law clerks please bring in the med cart.’

That might be the best way to remedy what is happening in the Wisconsin State Supreme Court.  The clerks would not only dispense the meds but check under the tongue of those needing a pill to be sure it was taken.  But please, no massaging of the neck to aid with swallowing!

Plainly put, what is now making headlines in Wisconsin is an embarrassment, and it must be throughly examined.    I can not be the only state resident that finds the stories I have read this weekend pathetic, damaging to the court, and to our state’s reputation. 

No one can be pleased.

Perhaps the news of the state budget being passed and signed into law seemed to imply that all the big news had passed.  There were weeks to go until the recall elections, and the state needed something new to be stunned over.  Citizens needed one more institution to view as unworkable, another set of characters to analyze and be concerned about.

When I first was told that Supreme Court Justice Prosser had allegedly placed a choke hold on Justice Bradley I asked my partner if this was an article from The Onion.  There was no way this could be an actual news story.  He read the headline and lead paragraph again, and reminded me that with all that has taken place so far this year nothing is impossible.

This story clearly has legs, and can lead to nothing but more embarrassment for Wisconsin.  As such I am really disheartened as we are not talking about some kids on a playground that need to be sent to their respective corners, but instead two court justices who are professionals that interpret law and make judicial decisions!

If we can not have these folks ‘play nice’ what is the hope for others in society?  I am tired of others around the nation needing to hear these ridiculous stories and have it reflect on this state and those that live here. 

I was deeply embarrassed when stories abounded earlier this year that Prosser had verbally abused Chief Justice Abrahamson, calling her “a bitch“.  That might be the lingo for some hay-seed state, but should not be uttered here in Wisconsin. 

Now we have serious allegations against Prosser of placing a chokehold on another female justice.   It must be investigated and aired so all can know the facts.  There seems to be a very deep and dysfunctional problem at the Supreme Court.  Since the citizens have been dragged into this affair with the airing of these issues we need to now  better understand what in heck is going on.

There can be no waffling with the truth concerning this matter.  Once and for all citizens need to know what is happening with a candidate who campaigned for a ten-year term and then acts like a fool when given the responsibility to sit on the court.

Until this matter is resolved I seriously suggest we get a med cart filled and roll it out for the Supreme Court.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Likes Politics More Than Law, Credibility Problem With Court Grows

There is no way to sum up the manner in which the Wisconsin State Supreme Court ruled on the collective bargaining law than to say partisanship and politics made a mockery of the law.

The fact that the ruling was rushed to time with the needs of legislative Republicans who did not want to take another vote on the union issue in the state budget should not surprise anyone.  That the orderly process of how a court reviews and studies complicated issues was thrown out the window so the most expedient political opinion could be rendered is shocking, and should concern us all.

Citizens deserve a Supreme Court that can be viewed as a fair arbiter on the big judicial questions that face the state.  On Tuesday the court’s credibility was severely eroded and its luster dimmed due to political shenanigans. 

I  find it sad  that at a time when public approval of our government and public institutions are shrinking the conservatives on the Supreme Court would act without a full written appellate court opinion from which to start their own proceedings.  Nothing that was done yesterday by the court majority will reverse the sad trend of unease among the citizenry.

We all come up as losers when this happens.

In her dissent, Abrahamson said the high court erred in taking the case up directly instead of waiting for one party or the other to appeal a lower court’s ruling. She singled out Prosser, whose concurrence, she wrote, “is long on rhetoric and long on story-telling that appears to have a partisan slant.”

Abrahamson said she agreed with Justice Patrick Crooks’ separate dissent, that the case should come to the Supreme Court as part of an “orderly appellate review of the circuit court’s order with a full opinion.”

“Only with a reasoned, accurate analysis can a court assure the litigants and the public that a decision is made on the basis of facts and law,” Abrahamson wrote, “free from a judge’s personal ideology and free from external pressure by the executive or legislative branches, by partisan political parties, by public opinion or by special interest groups.”

Crooks wrote that the majority reached “a hasty decision” that doesn’t address important questions about the Legislature’s constitutional requirements to provide public access to its hearings and the courts’ role in holding it to those requirements.

“Those who would rush to judgment on these matters are essentially taking the position that getting this opinion out is more important than doing it right and getting it right,” he wrote. “It is rather astonishing that the court would choose to decide such an unusual and complex case without benefit of a complete record.”

Abrahamsom continued…

But Abrahamson wrote that the order seems to open the court unnecessarily to the charge that the majority has “reached a predetermined conclusion not based on the facts and the law, which undermines the majority’s ultimate decision.”

The majority justices “make their own findings of fact, mischaracterize the parties’ arguments, misinterpret statutes, minimize (if not eliminate) Wisconsin constitutional guarantees, and misstate case law, appearing to silently overrule case law dating back to at least 1891,” Abrahamson wrote.

How Recount And Possible Legal Fights In Wisconsin Supreme Court Race May Play Out

Most strongly suspect that a recount is coming in light of the extremely close election results for Wisconsin State Supreme Court. 

Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg claimed victory over Justice David Prosser after an unofficial tally showed her holding the thinnest of leads. According to an unofficial tally by The Associated Press, she was up 204 votes out of nearly 1.5 million cast – a margin of 1/100th of a percent.

There are a number of twists and turns and possible ways to navigate in the days and weeks to come.    Here is a brief primer of where we might be headed.

Hang on, it is going to be  a bumy ride.

Here’s how the process would work in the coming days:

By 4 p.m. Wednesday, municipal clerks were to have delivered all their materials to the offices of county clerks around the state.

By 9 a.m. Thursday, county boards of canvassers have to start meeting and making an official report on ward-by-ward vote totals. Those reports will be sent to the Accountability Board.

The Accountability Board technically has until May 15 to certify the results, but Kennedy said a recount could begin by next week.

Once official statewide results are in, the losing candidate has three business days to decide whether to request a recount.

If a recount is requested, the Accountability Board would issue an order that it start simultaneously in counties around the state. Workers would sort through all the voting materials, double-check that they have the proper number of voters in each area, and recount ballots.

Observers could challenge ballots, which would then be set aside for further review.

About 90% of ballots are counted by running a paper document filled out by a voter through an optical scanner, Kennedy said.

Once counties complete their work on a possible recount, the new official totals would be sent to the Accountability Board again.

After any possible recount, the issue could still go to the courts.

In one twist, state law calls for Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson to appoint the state judge who would hear the case if the loser of a recount in a statewide election goes to court over the outcome. Abrahamson and Prosser have clashed on the court. Prosser’s private remark calling Abrahamson a “total bitch” was the subject of a recent political ad attacking Prosser.

State law says the trial judge in the case should be a reserve judge if one is available.

“The chief justice picks the reserve judge, which of course would add controversy to what is already controversial,” said Janine Geske, a former Supreme Court justice and now a professor at Marquette University Law School.

Once there is a ruling, it may be appealed to the Court of Appeals based in Madison, a court made up of five members: Margaret Vergeront, Brian Blanchard, Gary Sherman, Paul Higginbotham and Paul Lundsten.

None of the five judges on the appeals court endorsed either candidate. Blanchard and Kloppenburg shared the same campaign manager, Melissa Mulliken.

The statute says the appeals process outlined above is the “exclusive judicial remedy” in the case of a recount dispute. It does not explicitly say whether the finding of the Court of Appeals could then be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

But Kennedy of the Accountability Board said he understands the law to mean that a decision by the court of appeals on the race could be appealed to the state Supreme Court.

Under Supreme Court rules, Prosser alone would decide whether to hear a case if it came before the high court. If he steps aside, that would leave six justices to hear the case and raises the possibility of a 3-3 split. In that case, the ruling by the appeals court would stand.

JoAnne Kloppenburg Did NOT Put 80-Year-Old Man In Jail

Lets clear up one of those distortions that the David Prosser campaign is spinning about JoAnne Kloppenburg.

The Prosser team has made a point of stating JoAnne Kloppenburg put an 80-year-old farmer in jail for not planting native grasses on a field.   That is just bunk, bull, fiction.
 
Here is what happened.

A farmer named Wayne Hensler in Jefferson County was ordered by the State of Wisconsin to take action to stop pollution from run-off from his farm going into Rock Lake. Mr. Hensler refused to do the work but finally agreed to pay to have others do the remediation work. Then he refused to pay the money he’d agreed to pay.  Jefferson County Judge Randy Koschnick (who you may remember ran against Shirley Abrahamson) ordered Mr. Hensler to pay what he owed. He would not. Finally, another Judge in Jefferson  County, John Ullsvik, found Hensler in contempt and put him in jail for a few days.  Two facts are pertinent here: no attorney can put anyone in jail. Only a Judge can do that. Secondly, the farmer was jailed for contempt of court for refusing to pay money he had been repeatedly ordered to pay, not for “refusing to plant a field.”