Judicial temperament
by digby
Gosh re-electing this creep was certainly a good idea, wasn’t it?
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser allegedly grabbed fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley around the neck in an argument in her chambers last week, according to at least three knowledgeable sources.
Details of the incident, investigated jointly by Wisconsin Public Radio and the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, remain sketchy. The sources spoke on the condition that they not be named, citing a need to preserve professional relationships.They say an argument that occurred before the court’s release of a decision upholding a bill to curtail the collective bargaining rights of public employees culminated in a physical altercation in the presence of other justices. Bradley purportedly asked Prosser to leave her office, whereupon Prosser grabbed Bradley by the neck with both hands.
Justice Prosser, contacted Friday afternoon by the Center, declined comment: “I have nothing to say about it.” He repeated this statement after the particulars of the story — including the allegation that there was physical contact between him and Bradley — were described. He did not confirm or deny any part of the reconstructed account.
This same fine fellow had previously called this justice a “bitch” but the people re-elected him anyway.Waddayagonnado?
I don’t know what it takes to get thrown off the bench thesedays. According to this article in the American Spectator, liberals are unfairly smearing conservatives all over the place for nothing but crude partisan purposes, so I’m not sure that when a conservative justice assaults a liberal justice of a State Supreme Court that we can fairly assume that it wasn’t a provocation born of liberal insolence.
And anyway, if liberals do pursue ethics charges against conservative justices, this post at the Voloch Conspiracy tells us what will happen:
Just as the personal attacks on Republican judicial nominees discourage many qualified persons from accepting nominations and have resulted in a downward spiral of tit-for-tat personal attacks on Democratic nominees, this sustained “ethics” attack on conservative justices will eventually lead to similar attacks on the liberals. No one is so virtuous as to be above false attacks.
Don’t say they didn’t warn us.
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