Proposed Order on Judicial Donations Remains up for Debate
Fair Courts E-lert
Bibliographic Info:
Author: Patrick Marley
Source: Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Date: 1/18/2010
After a controversial 4-3 vote in October to adopt a rule saying that campaign contributions, endorsements, and independent expenditures “alone do not require judges to step aside in cases,” the Wisconsin Supreme Court recently issued a proposed order formalizing its vote; the state high court may finalize the order as early as Thursday. The proposed rule comes as controversy lingers over the court’s October vote, which it later had to withdraw when one member of the majority expressed concerns about portions of the petition that had originally been accepted without reservation. The justices remain at odds over the recently adopted recusal rules, with Justice N. Patrick Crooks, who voted against the rules adopted in October, calling for appointment of “a committee of legal experts to study the issue [of recusal]” and Justice David Prosser, Jr. maintaining that any such committee would be “designed to harass certain members of the court.” Last month, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley voiced concerns that “the new rules would create the impression special interests were setting ethical standards for judges” because the rules had been adopted by two “business lobbying group[s] that frequently run[] ads about justices at election times.” Two of the justices who have most conspicuously benefited from such ads – Annette Ziegler and Michael Gableman – voted with the majority in October. Gableman, for his part, has also been the focus of repeated petitions calling for his recusal from cases because defense counsel “consider his comments [from his 2008 campaign] to show bias against criminal defendants.” In a deadlock emblematic of the court’s fractiousness on the recusal issue, the six remaining justices remain evenly divided over whether Gableman should be forced to recuse.
See also Alex De Grand, Wisconsin Supreme Court Withdraws Earlier Vote on Recusal Rules, State Bar of Wisconsin, December 7, 2009.