"The Wisconsin Supreme Court Seems to be Making Up the Law as it Goes Along" [View all]
Ray Lawson
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"The Wisconsin Supreme Court Seems to be Making Up the Law as it Goes Along" - See more at:
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/02/13040/JohnDoe_order_Wisconsin#sthash.vyL040VB.dpuf #wipolitics
WI Supreme Court Again Tries Thwarting SCOTUS Review of Its Conflicts of Interest
Submitted by Brendan Fischer on February 11, 2016 - 6:49am
Last week, the Wisconsin Supreme Court's majority took another step to insulate itself from review by the U.S. Supreme Court, the latest twist in the long-running "John Doe" legal saga that has brought national attention to dysfunction on the state's highest court.
"It is hard to imagine how a state Supreme Court could throw more roadblocks in front of an attempt to file [an appeal] with the U.S. Supreme Court than this court has," said former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske, who is now a professor at Marquette Law School.
In an order issued late on Friday, February 5, the Court barred prosecutors from receiving free, pro bono legal assistance to challenge the conflicts of interest that faced some Wisconsin Supreme Court justices in last year's John Doe case. Under U.S. Supreme Court precedent, some justices likely should not have heard the case at all, since it involved the same groups that spent millions electing the court' majority.
Many in Wisconsin's legal community viewed the order as an effort to diminish the chances that a federal court will take a hard look at the Wisconsin Supreme Court's ethical standards, not to mention to review the decision itself.
"This order is a transparent effort to hamstring the prosecutors ability to get the case in front of the U.S. Supreme Court," said Susan Crawford, an attorney at Cullen Weston Pines & Bach. "I guess the majority on the court would prefer to insulate their actions from review."
"The Wisconsin Supreme Court Seems to be Making Up the Law as it Goes Along"
Last July, the Wisconsin Supreme Court issued its controversial opinion ending the "John Doe" investigation into Governor Scott Walker's campaign allegedly working with dark money "issue ad" groups. The decision rewrote campaign finance law, making the unprecedented assertion that the First Amendment protects this sort of coordination, giving politicians an easy way to bypass campaign finance contribution limits and disclosure requirements.
- See more at:
http://www.prwatch.org/news/2016/02/13040/JohnDoe_order_Wisconsin#sthash.vyL040VB.PJK4qDwp.dpuf