Gavel Grab

The sharply divided and often feuding Wisconsin Supreme Court has decided to hear two cases involving controversial issues, and its ultimate rulings could again bring the court into the limelight again.

Gov. Scott Walker’s Act 10, a law that restricts collective bargaining for many public employees, is involved in one of the appeals. A trial judge in Dane County earlier invalidated the law as it applied to local governments and school district, but it was uncertain whether the decision applied beyond Madison and Milwaukee, the Associated Press reported.

A 2011 Wisconsin Supreme Court election was widely seen as a referendum on Walker’s collective bargaining law.

The court also agreed last week to decide whether Wisconsin’s same-sex domestic partnership law violates a constitutional amendment that voters approved in 2006. It defines marriage as between one woman and one man, a Bloomberg article said.

Wisconsin’s Assembly passed and sent to the state Senate a bill that would restrict the ability of circuit court judges to block state laws.

Last month, two critics of the measure said it has the effect of “putting citizens at risk of irreparable harm from constitutional violations” (see Gavel Grab). The critics are Matthew Menendez, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, and Andrea Kaminski, executive director of the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin Education Network. The Brennan Center and the League of Women Voters are JAS partner groups.

If the measure became law, an order by a circuit court could be appealed immediately, and if that were done inside 10 days, the lower court’s order would be stayed. This would apply when a circuit judge, ruling on a state law, restrained its enforcement or suspended the statute. Read more

Wisconsin’s budget-writing committee has voted to increase state court funding by $5.2 million, but the courts still would face an $11.8 million cut in the budget draft, reports the Capital Times.

Court officials have expressed concern that the reduced budget would cause delays to the court system’s work.

“I hope the full Legislature will appreciate the detrimental effects the committee’s action will have on people and businesses that rely on courts in local communities throughout the state,” said Wisconsin Supreme Court Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson (photo) in a press release.

Gov. Scott Walker’s initial budget proposal this year included a $17 million cut to the courts, but Abrahamson appealed to the Joint Finance Committee to restore funds, the article says.

When Abrahamson spoke before the committee, she argued that the court system operates on a slim margin. “There’s very little flexibility, very little wiggle room in the court’s budget,” she said.

She criticized the budget cuts as an “anti-revenue measure” that would limit the ability of clerks to collect court fees. Abrahamson said she is also concerned that a lack in funds would reduce the court’s capacity to provide legal representation to the poor.

In these other dispatches about fair and impartial courts:

• Among applicants for an upcoming vacancy on Maryland’s Court of Appeals is Judge Shirley Watts. Afro Briefs reports that if Watts is appointed to the bench by Gov. Martin O’Malley and confirmed, she would be the first female African American judge to serve on the Maryland appeals court.
• Recently elected Ohio Supreme Court Justices Sharon Kennedy and Judy French emphasized the need for judges to recognize their constitutional role in the state’s government at a meeting of the Republican Women’s Club on Thursday. According to the Ohio News Journal, the justices spoke as Ohio’s Supreme Court undergoes substantial changes, with an entirely fresh set of judges being elected to the Supreme Court in less than six years.
• Pennsylvania Common Pleas Court Judge Thomas Nocella has been suspended by the state Supreme Court and tried on misconduct charges, according to NewsWorks from WHYY. Lynn Marks, executive director of Pennsylvanians for Modern Courts (PMC), has decried Nocella’s unethical behavior, saying that during his term “there was a whole slew of not only unethical but illegal conflict.” PMC is a Justice at Stake Partner organization.
• Wisconsin Judge Mike Moran is concerned about security in Marathon County’s courthouses, and he called for more officers to help maintain safety this week, according to WSAU News. Moran wants to hire more part time-officers to assist in the transportation and movement of inmates through the county courthouse.

A Republican-sponsored bill that would restrict the ability of Wisconsin circuit court judges to block state laws has the effect of “putting citizens at risk of irreparable harm from constitutional violations,” according to two critics of the measure.

“Wisconsin lawmakers should not attack judiciary,” declared the headline for a Wisconsin Journal Sentinel op-ed by Matthew Menendez, counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice, and Andrea Kaminski, executive director of the League of Women Voters of WI Education Network.

If the measure became law, an order by a circuit court could be appealed immediately, and if that were done inside 10 days, the lower court’s order would be stayed. This would apply when a circuit judge, ruling on a state law, restrained its enforcement or suspended the statute.

According to the authors, the bill would weaken the judiciary and undermine “the very purpose that injunctions serve, in preventing the irreparable harm that is likely if the government is allowed to violate citizens’ constitutional rights until all litigation and appeals have concluded.”

The measure was expected to receive a vote this week, but minority Democrats in the Wisconsin State Assembly delayed a vote until legislators return to work in June, the Associated Press reported.

The Brennan Center and the League of Women Voters are JAS partner groups.

In these other dispatches about fair and impartial courts:

• The Wisconsin State Assembly was scheduled to vote on a bill Tuesday that would allow attorneys to nullify rulings by state courts blocking laws. According to the Associated Press, an attorney could stay a judge’s order by filing an appeal within 10 days of the ruling.
• A new financial report shows that Boston Municipal Court Judge Raymond G. Dougan received more than $550,000 in free legal aid from a top law firm in order to fight bias charges against him. An investigation into Dougan’s free legal aid was started earlier this year by the Committee on Judicial Conduct, but it was dropped when a judicial ethics panel declared some gifts acceptable, says the Boston Globe.

U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor appeared on an episode of ABC’s “The View” this week to discuss her memoir, “My Beloved World.”

The justice joked that she felt as nervous coming on the show as lawyers do when they argue in front of the Supreme Court. The hosts asked Sotomayor about her childhood, and the stories she wrote about in her memoirs.

Elisabeth Hasselbeck asked Sotomayor if she had an opinion on affirmative action, and whether it had any impact on where she was today. Sotomayor replied that she could not state an opinion on affirmative action due to a pending case on the matter, but that in her memoir she had discussed what it was like to grow up in the civil rights movement. Read more

A Republican-sponsored bill that would restrict the ability of circuit court judges to block state laws could be unconstitutional, says the nonpartisan Legislative Council, the attorneys who advise the legislature.

A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article said trial courts have blocked some of Republican legislators’ top achievements, and legislators in turn have been exploring ways to respond by reducing the authority of trial courts.

The article details both those past rulings and the debate in a legislative hearing on Thursday over the controversial bill. You can learn what a former state Supreme Court justice said about the bill by reading this earlier Gavel Grab post.

In these other dispatches about fair and impartial courts:

• When compared to supreme courts in other states across the country, Nebraskans should be happy to find that their own high court is operating smoothly and responsibly, says an Omaha World Herald opinion. Other state supreme courts have witnessed one justice place another in a chokehold, and the conviction on public corruption charges of a justice from still a different state.
• On Wednesday, Michigan Supreme Court justices traveled to the Midland Center for the Arts to hear oral arguments in a case involving the theft of a perfume bottle. The Associated Press reports that students from local high schools and colleges attended the hearing.
• Despite controversy that continues to surround the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson continues to be “the essential member of Wisconsin’s highest court,” says a Madison Cap Times editorial. Abrahamson recently broke the record to become the longest-serving high court justice in state history.
• Three Rivers Commercial News reports that thanks to new a Michigan Supreme Court grant, new HD video monitors will be placed in each of St. Joseph County’s courtrooms. The article says this will allow for video appearances of witnesses during trials, cutting costs and time needed to transport prisoners from jails.
• Suspended Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin and her sister, Janine Orie, should be held fully accountable for violating the law, argues a Pittsburgh Tribune-Review opinion. A sentence of just under four years is too short for the charges of public corruption against the two sisters, it says.

Wisconsin Supreme Court justices discussed changes to the state’s judicial ethics code on Friday, but couldn’t seem to decide on alterations to recusal rules, reports the Legal Newsline.

The justices held an Open Rules Conference on Friday to discuss Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson’s proposed revisions. According to the article, Abrahamson would like to see the court follow provisions from  a code of conduct created by the American Bar Association.

Newly reelected Justice Pat Roggensack argued that the court should not be revising the code in an open meeting forum.

Justice David Prosser said he was worried that attorneys and special interest groups would abuse the new recusal rules, and use them to push certain justices off a case.

Both Abrahamson and Justice Ann Walsh Bradley are in support of making the changes in the open, the article says.