The Wisconsin Supreme Court is again making national news because of bickering among justices. The latest incident involves Justices David Prosser and Ann Walsh Bradley. She accuses him of putting her in a chokehold while debating the state’s divisive collective bargaining case. The Dane County Sheriff has launched an investigation, so has the Wisconsin Judicial Commission. Prosser says the facts will exonerate him. WUWM’s Marti Mikkelson spoke with judicial observers who insist the court must regain respectability.
The public has gotten a good glimpse of the discord existing among Wisconsin Supreme Court justices. In addition to these latest allegations of a physical confrontation, Justice David Prosser admitted to calling Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson a derogatory name during a heated argument in 2010 and threatening to destroy her. Marquette University Law Professor Peter Rofes says the reputation of the court has taken a beating with each reported incident.
“We have been pummeled recently and not so recently with so much about the individual and collective dysfunctions of our state’s highest court that even the allegations that came to light over the weekend don’t truly astonish anymore and that in itself is disturbing and revealing,” Rofes says.
Rofes says this particular court faces an ideological divide unlike any other in recent memory and the result is justices lacking respect for each other. Four of them are viewed as conservative judges; three as liberal. And that is how supporters have been stacking up during elections. UW-Madison Political Science Professor Howard Schweber says that sharp party affiliation has caused Wisconsin’s high court to fall from national model to disgrace.
“If you go back 20 years one thought of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court as remarkable for its integrity, its professionalism. It was not the scene of partisan battles like some other states. Our nonpartisan election system was largely intact. There was not as there is today the wink and the nod that everyone knows this is the Republican Party’s favorite candidate and everyone knows this is the Democratic Party’s favorite candidate,” Schweber says.
Schweber says judicial elections in Wisconsin also used to operate without large-scale spending by special interest groups. That changed a few years ago when Republicans backed conservative candidates Annette Ziegler and Michael Gableman, and Democrats threw their support behind the opponents. The races generated scores of expensive, negative attack ads, and set records for spending on state supreme court races. Schweber says the system is broken and suggests a couple ways to restore integrity to the court.
“Other states use systems for example which say, a bipartisan panel produces a slate of nominees and presents it to the governor and the governor is free to choose one of those nominees or send them back for another slate. That kind of system can work very well,” Schweber says.
Schweber says Wisconsin also needs to strengthen its judicial ethics and hold justices to the same kind of decorum as public school teachers. He says recent ethics charges against Justices Ziegler and Gableman resulted in slaps on the wrist. The Wisconsin Judicial Commission investigates complaints of wrongdoing, and then makes recommendations to the high court. It decides its members’ fates. UW-Milwaukee Governmental Affairs Professor Mordecai Lee told us earlier this week that he also believes it may be time for Wisconsin to change the way it selects judges.
“Maybe we have to think about having a state Supreme Court that’s more like the U. S. Supreme Court where the chief executive nominates somebody and then they’re subject to confirmation by the Legislature. Maybe that’s one way to sort of moderate the partisan tensions,” Lee says.
Lee says in the meantime, the justices have to figure out a way to get along. Governor Walker has also called for the seven to find a way to restore public confidence in the court.
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