Prosser's Imaginative Strategy: The End of Judging

Facing three ethics allegations filed by the Wisconsin Judicial Commission stemming from an altercation last year in the chamber of fellow jurist Ann Walsh Bradley, Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser told the Wisconsin State Journal that no member of the court should be allowed to debate his fate though the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of such cases.

In other words, let no judges judge.

Breath-taking.

And by the way, isn't the rule and process on the Wisconsin high court that it is the personal judgement - - dare I use the word - - for Justice to make about whether to step aside - - a hot topic and one in which Prosser joined with the rest of the 4-3 conservative majority in a recent affirmation of that procedure?

Maybe if Prosser thinks that the Court can't hear his case (read:do its job, no matter how difficult and awkward), the solution is to do what courts have done when they don't have sufficient jurors to hear cases and keep the wheels of the system moving  - - deputies or bailiffs are dispatched to pull off the street the number of citizens needed to listen to evidence, make rulings and maintain one of our sacred, collective civic duties.

Seven Wisconsin citizens. Haul 'em in off the street and let them look at the justices' code of conduct, hear the evidence and say "aye" or "nay." 

Short of that, or Prosser's imperious stances, Wisconsinites will have really been detoured into end-of-the-road "judge not, lest ye be judged" territory, where David Prosser makes the rules that allow him to sit and rule on others, judgement-free.