State Supreme Court’s Actions on John Doe Cases Reveal Big Money Impact on Courts

[hue]

http://expressmilwaukee.com/article-24624-state-supreme-court%25E2%2580%2599s-actions-on-john-doe-cases-reveal-big-money-impact-on-courts.html

Ethically challenged conservative majority could eradicate campaign finance laws and give a pass to white-collar criminals

Last week’s unanimous decision of the Wisconsin Supreme Court to take on three cases relating to the John Doe investigation into the political allies of Republican Gov. Scott Walker is ostensibly about campaign finance laws.

But in the big picture, the high-profile fight over whether Walker, the Wisconsin Club for Growth and roughly two dozen conservative special-interest groups could coordinate fundraising, messaging and spending during the 2011 and 2012 recalls shows the influence of big money on our court system. Big money is involved at all levels of the latest chapter of the John Doe saga, from buying justices to shutting down criminal investigations to potentially destroying the state’s campaign finance laws.

Ethical Conflicts of Justices

Six of the seven state Supreme Court justices agreed to take on and consolidate three cases related to the John Doe. The absent justice, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, has recused herself from the cases since her son practices law with Dean Strang, one of the attorneys filing suit. Bradley is up for re-election in April 2015.

However, four of the remaining justices—Michael Gableman, David Prosser, Patience Roggensack and Annette Ziegler—benefited from the spending of two groups at the heart of the cases, Wisconsin Club for Growth and Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC). According to the Center on Media and Democracy’s Brendan Fischer, the groups spent more than $10 million since 2007 to elect their four favored conservative justices.

Despite this financial connection, Wisconsin judges and justices aren’t forced to remove themselves from cases involving any campaign donor. That’s because the court amended their own Judicial Code of Conduct to allow them to rule on cases that involve donors. The majority of the court adopted the rule, verbatim, that had been proposed by WMC and the Wisconsin Realtors Association. WMC just happens to be a participant, along with Wisconsin Club for Growth and Walker, in what prosecutors call their “criminal scheme” to subvert Wisconsin’s campaign finance laws. The John Doe cases before the court target the groups’ coordination.

[Jackpine Radical]

1. There is no joy in Cheddarville.

Progressives have struck out.

And the fucking dupes who elected this gang of thugs and thieves into power still have no clue about what they have done.

[sybylla]

3. Unfortunately so very true.

It leaves me with little hope. Wisconsin is like that adict who needs to wake up after spending the night in a sewage-filled ditch before they start thinking they maybe need to live/vote differently.

[Scuba]

2. Buying the State Supreme Court was as important to Walker as the SCOTUS was to Bush.

[midnight]

4. "That’s because the court amended their own Judicial Code of Conduct to allow them to rule on cases

that involve donors."


I guess this sentence tells us all what is wrong with what is going on with our courts.