Meet the Republican Judge Fighting to Bail Scott Walker Out Of A Criminal Investigation

[applegrove]

Meet the Republican Judge Fighting to Bail Scott Walker Out Of A Criminal Investigation

by Ian Millhiser at Think Progress

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2014/05/11/3436347/meet-the-republican-judge-fighting-to-bail-scott-walker-out-of-a-criminal-investigation/

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Last Tuesday, a Republican federal judge named Rudolph Randa handed down an unusual order cutting off a criminal investigation alleging illegal coordination between several political campaigns — including Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s (R) 2012 recall campaign — and conservative groups such as the Wisconsin Club for Growth. Randa speckled his order with uncharacteristic rhetoric for a judge tasked with being a neutral and impartial arbiter of the law. At one point, he labels the criminal probe “a long-running investigation of all things Walker-related.” At another point, he compares efforts to reign in excessive campaign spending to “the Guillotine and the Gulag.”

One day after Randa ordered this investigation halted, even requiring prosecutors to return or destroy documents that provided evidence that illegal coordination took place, the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued a brief order holding that Randa had no business deciding this case in the first place — as the case was already on appeal. “[O]nce a litigant files a notice of appeal,” the Seventh Circuit explained, “a district court may not take any further action in the suit unless it certifies that the appeal is frivolous. The district court failed to follow that rule when, despite the notice of appeal filed by several defendants, it entered a preliminary injunction.” Not to be outdone, Randa responded on Thursday by saying that the appeal was, indeed, frivolous. A position that at least one legal scholar disagreed with, saying that Randa’s original ruling was “extraordinary.”

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Beyond whatever ideological lens Randa brings to his courtroom, as George Zornick points out, he also has an unusually personal connection to the criminal probe that he shut down. Randa’s judicial assistant is married to a top lawyer for the Walker campaign. According to the Center for Media and Democracy, Randa is also a board member of the Milwaukee Federalist Society, a prominent conservative legal group.


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