4-3 vs 3-4, Nothing More

The Awl's Abe Sauer has another great post on the Wisconsin situation: Wisconsin's Nasty Spring Election: Impartiality with Its Sleeves Rolled

After pointing out that that current Wisconsin supreme court judge David Prosser was oh-so-happy to be identified with incoming Governor Scott Walker before the whole flap over collective bargaining - now he seems to have second thoughts. He's his own man. We need impartiality in all things.


Witness the WI GOP asking Wisconsin's Chief Justice to Recuse herself from ruling on the union busting law because she's received political donations from unions. Cos' y'know the GOP is all about appearing above board in all things.


Sauer goes on to shine a harsh light on judge Prosser's impartiality (as well as his contempt for his opponent):

In February he was the keynote speaker "on behalf of" the Outagamie County Republican Party at its annual Lincoln Day dinner. A video posted on the Rock County Republican Party Facebook Page shows Prosser at its dinner mocking his challenger about how, as a prosecutor for the Dept. of Natural Resources, she has wasted her time… charging those violating environmental regulations. Prosser said: "She's very concerned about individuals who violate the rules on docks." The crowd laughs. "And she wants some people not to have any docks at all!" The crowd laughs more.


...


Prosser's scorn for what is essentially a prosecutor doing her job is stunning, considering Prosser's own history as a prosecutor. In 2008, Prosser was forced to recuse himself from a case involving sexually abused minors and the Catholic Church because, while serving as district attorney of Outagamie County in 1979, Prosser had refused to prosecute a Green Bay priest accused of sexually molesting two brothers. His reasoning? It would have been too hard on the boys. (In 2004 the priest, then 81, was imprisoned after abusing an unknown further number of children.) In 2008, the victim told the Journal Sentinel, "[Prosser] said it would be too embarrassing for a kid my age and said what jury would believe a kid testifying against a priest? Then he said, what really makes it bad is that [the priest's] brother, Joe, sang on the Lawrence Welk show and everybody watched that back then."

So which former district attorney would you rather have on the high court bench: the anal retentive prosecutor charging people with extending their lake docks two feet longer than allowed by the law or the guy who doesn't prosecute a child molester because the priest's brother was once on the Lawrence Welk Show?

Nicely put.

Read the full post.