What has happened to Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser?

He's taking a month off "to recover from a serious [but not life-threatening] health issue," we're told.

That will leave six justices to hear several cases, raising the possibility of 3-3 splits on the deeply divided court....

Prosser did not participate in orders this week in a fast-moving, politically charged case over recall elections...

Prosser is the conservative justice who was involved in that bizarre "chokehold" incident. (There was no actual chokehold, apparently.) He won a hotly contested campaign for reelection this summer after the Wisconsin protesters focused their energy on defeating him. At present the protest effort is aimed at various recall elections, and there is a current controversy before the court about whether the next round of recall elections against legislators will use the newly drawn legislative districts (which favor Republicans) or the old districts that were drawn back in 2002, when Democrats controlled the process.

I wonder what is wrong with Justice Prosser. Based on what I've read about the "chokehold" incident, I imagine an intense degree of interpersonal conflict and stress inside the court. One could speculate about the kind of health problems such a workplace environment might cause or exacerbate. Is this month off a prelude to resignation? If he were to resign, the Governor — the Democrats' nemesis Scott Walker — would have the power to appoint the person who will replace him, but that person will need to stand for reelection next year. [NOTE: Text edited for accuracy.]

Walker, of course, is facing a petition drive to force him into a recall election some time next year. Under the circumstances, it would be interesting to see what kind of justice he would pick to replace Prosser. Prosser is the 4th vote in the conservative group that determines the outcome in all of the ideologically split 4-3 cases. Obviously, Walker would want a reliable conservative. But beyond that, he should want to burnish his own reputation by picking someone with impressive legal credentials. And considering the situation inside the court, he should want someone with strong leadership skills and a great capacity to operate in a psychologically stressful work environment.

ADDED: Maybe something else happened, something like the "chokehold" incident, and he's been pressured to get that "anger management" treatment he was previously told to get.  There could have been an ultimatum: Get that treatment now, or we'll go public.

"The Wisconsin Judicial Commission filed formal ethics allegations Friday against Justice David Prosser..."

At long last, we hear from the Judicial Commission about the infamous "chokehold" incident:

Prosser issued a statement Friday criticizing the Judicial Commission's complaint, suggesting it is politically motivated. He said the commission is "trying to accomplish through this prosecution what some of its members failed to achieve at the ballot box."

"The charges filed by the Judicial Commission are partisan, unreasonable, and largely untrue," Prosser said in a statement. "They will be vigorously contested because I am innocent."...

"This is not about whether Justice Prosser is a good or bad guy," said Franklyn Gimbel, a prominent Milwaukee lawyer who was hired as special prosecutor by the Judicial Commission for this case. "This is not about whether Justice Prosser is a good or bad judge. This is not about his judicial philosophies. It is about whether or not his behavior on June 13, 2011, was violative of the ethical requirements for a judge."

We've talked about this incident many times on this blog:

August 26, 2011: "There never was a "chokehold" in the Wisconsin Supreme Court — so who put that word out there and why?"

August 26, 2011: "I've finally waded through the 'chokehold' investigation file."

August 29, 2011: "The special prosecutor said no criminal charges, but what will the Wisconsin Judicial Commission do about the 'chokehold' incident?"

There never was a "chokehold" in the Wisconsin Supreme Court — so who put that word out there and why?

[NOTE: See the updates to this post, which originally relied on the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report. The updates summarize the actual investigation file, which contains many reference to a "chokehold."]

This morning, the Dane County Sheriff's Department released 117 pages of records from the Wisconsin Supreme Court "chokehold" investigation. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel summarized this way:

In interviews with a detective on July 8, [Justice David] Prosser said that during an informal argument between two groups of justices Bradley "charged" him and he put up his hands to defend himself.

"Did my hands touch her neck, yes, I admit that. Did I try to touch her neck, no, absolutely not, it was a total reflex," Prosser said.

Bradley said during the argument she wanted Prosser to leave the suite of offices that serve her and her staff and confronted him to tell him to leave because she felt he was being disrespectful to Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson.

"You get out of my office," Bradley said she told Prosser during an interview with a detective on June 28. While saying that, she said she was "standing face to face to confront him."

So... she was "standing face to face to confront him." How did she get to the point where she was standing there? Did she "charge" him? It's not so much a discrepancy in the testimony as a time gap in the Bradley version.

Later, Bradley said, she could recall the contact of Prosser's hands on her neck but no pain or pressure that affected her breathing. She did, however, say that she had become emotional after the incident.

So Bradley concedes that Prosser's hands merely made contact with her neck, after she got into the position of being in his face.  This seems like a plain statement that there was no chokehold. But we have heard that Bradley called it "a chokehold."

On June 25, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported through an unnamed source:

Bradley felt Prosser "was attacking the chief justice," the source said. Before leaving, Prosser "put his hands around her neck in what (Bradley) described as a chokehold," the source said.

[ADDED: That story begins with a direct quote from Bradley, giving directly to the newspaper: "The facts are that I was demanding that he get out of my office and he put his hands around my neck in anger in a chokehold."]

Reading that story, I wrote:

I want to know not only what really happened at the time of the physical contact (if any) between the 2 justices, but also who gave the original story to the press. If Prosser really tried to choke a nonviolent Bradley, he should resign. But if the original account is a trumped-up charge intended to destroy Prosser and obstruct the democratic processes of government in Wisconsin, then whoever sent the report out in that form should be held responsible for what should be recognized as a truly evil attack.

So what I want to know is who put out the story that Bradley said she was choked and did Bradley herself ever claim to have been choked? It sounds as though she never said that to the investigators (or it would be in the report and the MJS summary today). Did she say it to anyone else?

Let's remember that it was Bill Lueders at the Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism who originally broke the story of the incident. On June 25, he wrote:

"Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser allegedly grabbed fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley around the neck in an argument in her chambers earlier this month."

Reading that, at the time, I questioned this approach to journalism:

I agreed with [Ian Millhiser at the lefty blog Think Progress] that "if it's true Prosser reached a breaking point and started strangling Bradley, he should go." But I wanted to know the whole story. It seemed to me that Lueders had given us "just the snapshot of one hard-to-comprehend instant within the longer event." I was skeptical about the version of the story Lueders had put out, because there had been no arrest and because I found it hard to picture an elderly, dignified man suddenly grabbing a (somewhat less elderly) woman by the neck.

I quoted myself saying "whoever sent the report out in that form should be held responsible for what should be recognized as a truly evil attack" and said:

When I wrote that, it did not cross my mind that the "truly evil" person might be Lueders himself.

Lueders has not yet responded to the special prosecutor's decision not to bring charges. The spotlight belongs on him right now. I want to know who put the word "chokehold" out there and why.

UPDATE: I'm now looking at the investigative file, here.  I'll note the references to choking as I encounter them.

"An autopsy found that financier Jeffrey Epstein sustained multiple breaks in his neck bones, according to two people familiar with the findings, deepening the mystery about the circumstances around his death."

"Among the bones broken in Epstein’s neck was the hyoid bone, which in men is near the Adam’s apple. Such breaks can occur in those who hang themselves, particularly if they are older, according to forensics experts and studies on the subject. But they are more common in victims of homicide by strangulation, the experts said.... The office of New York City’s chief medical examiner, Barbara Sampson, completed an autopsy of Epstein’s body Sunday.... The hyoid bone played a central role in a heated dispute last year over another high-profile death in New York, that of Eric Garner. A New York police officer was accused of using an improper chokehold while trying to arrest Garner and of causing his death. A police officers’ association claimed that an autopsy from Sampson’s office found there was no break of Garner’s hyoid bone, and that this proved that the officer could not have strangled Garner and caused his death. This 'demonstrates conclusively that Mr. Garner did not die of strangulation of the neck from a chokehold,' the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association said. But Sampson rejected that claim, saying she stood by her conclusion that Garner died of 'compression of neck (chokehold), compression of chest and prone positioning during physical restraint by police.' Sampson’s office said Garner’s bronchial asthma, obesity and high blood pressure were contributing factors. In a widely circulated video of the 2014 incident, the officer was seen grabbing Garner around the neck, pushing him and his face into the pavement. Garner is overheard pleading several times: 'I can’t breathe.' Two weeks later, Sampson’s office concluded the officer’s actions were the primary cause of his death."

From "Autopsy finds broken bones in Jeffrey Epstein’s neck, deepening questions around his death" (WaPo).

I've finally waded through the "chokehold" investigation file.

Maybe you didn't notice all the summary and quotation I produced in the form of updates to the post titled "There never was a "chokehold" in the Wisconsin Supreme Court — so who put that word out there and why?" It was quite a task, so I'm going to reprint all that material here. I would also draw some conclusions or at least make some pithy observations, but it's late. I'm going to sleep on it and see how it strikes me when I read this in the morning. For now, click on "Read more," read more, and tell me what you think. I'll take that into account too.
 

UPDATE: I'm now looking at the investigative file, here.  I'll note the references to choking as I encounter them.

The first one is on page 3, from a report of the police interview with Justice Bradley's husband Mark Bradley. He said that on the evening after the incident, his wife — who had been "distraught" and "sobbing" — said "Dave put his hands around my neck to choke me." And: "Ann told him that that Justice Prosser grabbed her around the neck and Justice Roggensack separated them."

UPDATE 2: I'm reading the police report of the interview with Justice Annette Ziegler, and I see something that was also in the Mark Bradley interview: Immediately after the incident, Justice Bradley sat down at her desk and started typing. Ziegler said she thought that was inconsistent with having been choked and also noted that Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson didn't say anything that you'd expect her to say if she'd just seen Bradley choked. Ziegler also commented on the general work environment at the court: She called it "weird." She said that both Prosser and Bradley tend to speak in a "theatrical" style, and that Bradley is "up and down emotionally" while Prosser is "calm."

UPDATE 3: In the police report of the interview with Tina Noldolf, the Supreme Court Marshal, who had interviewed Justice Bradley the morning after the incident, Noldolf says that Bradley said that Prosser's "yelling" at the Chief Justice "caused Justice Bradley to stand up and walk swiftly towards Justice Prosser."  Bradley said she "got in his personal space" and ordered him out of her office, at which point he "grabbed her by the throat." Bradley said that Justice Roggensack "assisted in separating" the 2 Justices and told Bradley she wasn't "acting like yourself" and "You didn't have to rush at Dave." Noldolf also interviewed Abrahamson, who demonstrated Prosser's action with "both of her hands on my neck" and "thumbs in front of my neck and her fingers wrapped around the back of my neck so that her palms were in contact with my neck." Abrahamson "was clear that both of Justice Prosser's hands were around Justice Bradley's neck." Abrahamson indicated that Prosser was "more of the aggressor."

UPDATE 4: Now, let's look at the police report of the interview with Justice Ann Walsh Bradley. According to this report, Bradley had been seated, reading Abrahamson's draft of the dissenting opinion, while Prosser and Abrahamson were arguing. Bradley says she said, "David we're no longer willing to put up with your yelling and abusive behavior," which caused Prosser to moderate his tone as he continued to pressure Abrahamson about getting the opinion out that evening. Bradley then says she noted that the chief justice had been working hard on the 18-page concurring opinion that they'd only received at 1:30 that day. There was some discussion about whether they'd been notified by email on Friday that there would be a concurring opinion, and Bradley went to her computer to look for the email (according to the police report). Prosser reportedly raised his voice again and said "Chief, I have lost confidence in your leadership."

Justice Bradley said she began to walk over toward where Justice Prosser was standing... As she got closer to him Justice Bradley told Justice Prosser, "Buddy don't raise your voice again. I'm no longer willing to put up with this." Justice Bradley described how she was now standing close to Justice Prosser and was "face to face to confront him." Justice Bradley stated that she was pointing with her left hand toward the door that was behind him and said, "You get out of my office." 

So, in her own version of the story, the physical aggression begins with Bradley. She said she wanted to convey that she "meant it." At this point "Justice Prosser grabbed her by the throat in what she described as a 'choke hold.'" She recalls yelling something like "Get  your hands off my neck." Justice Roggensack pulled her back and said, "Ann, this isn't like you,  you charged at him." To which Bradley responded: "I didn't touch him at all." [ADDED: I read that response as implicitly acknowledging that she did charge at him.][ADDED 2: In her second interview with the police, at page 34, Bradley says she addressed Prosser as "Buddy" because "Buddy puts me in control and them in the diminutive."]

Justice Bradley described herself as "feeling eerie" about the whole situation. 

Asked if she feared for her safety at the time, she said "not really." Immediately afterwards, she sat down and typed up what she called "an incident report." She said she soon called Justice Patrick Crooks (the one of the 7 Justices who was not present at the incident) and told him "Prosser just put me in a choke hold."

Interestingly, Abrahamson did not talk to Bradley after the alleged choking. She kept talking to Ziegler, according to Bradley's statement to the police, as Bradley typed up her report and talked to Crooks on the phone. Then, Abrahamson left for dinner, and Bradley subsequently went home and talked to her husband about what to do. Why wasn't Abrahamson involved in any of that? Was it that the incident was inconsequential?

UPDATE 5: 2 days after the incident, there was a conference with all 7 justices and Capitol Police Chief Charles Tubbs. Bradley, according to her police interview, had a typed-up speech to read to the justices.

Justice Bradley said at one point during the meeting, Justice Prosser was talking with Chief Tubbs about having his hands up on Justice Bradley's shoulders. Justice Bradley said she then corrected Justice Prosser by telling him, "No Dave, they were around my neck." Justice Bradley said Justice Prosser did not deny having his hands around her neck and she corrected him and said, "Your hands were around my neck in a choke hold." Justice Bradley said she repeated this quote several times throughout the meeting as if it was a "mantra."

So, clearly, Bradley herself was quite committed to the idea that there was a chokehold. Bradley said that Prosser characterized what she was doing as a "threat":

"Justice Bradley is threatening to go public if I don't go to counseling." Justice Bradley said Justice Prosser continued saying "Justice Bradley and the Chief Justice have been threatening me for years." 

Threatening him for years? The Bradley interview report goes on to accuse Prosser of "making verbal threats."

Justice Bradley said Justice Prosser would go, "Months without having outbursts, but then just goes off." She also said, "You never know what will set him off." Justice Bradley also feels as though Justice Prosser is paranoid and feels like it is getting worse. Justice Bradley feels as though Justice Prosser's anger is focused towards Chief Justice Abrahamson.

UPDATE 6: Next is the interview with Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson. Like Bradley, she said that what launched Bradley out of her chair was Prosser's statement to that he had lost confidence in Abrahamson. In Abrahamson's version, Bradley "walk[ed] toward Prosser.

The Chief Justice did not recall seeing Justice Bradley's hands raised as she walked by her. Chief Justice stated if there was some sort of gesture, it was non-threatening and it wasn't one that stood out to her. She recalled Justice Bradley might have been motioning towards the door, telling Justice Prosser he needed to "get out of the office."

Might have been motioning... did not recall...  These are careful statements.

The Chief Justice stated she did not see Justice Bradley's fist being raised at any time.

Did she see a fist at all? A non-raised fist?

The Chief Justice said at the point Justice Bradley stood up, it was apparent to her that Justice Prosser's anger seemed very focused and directed towards the herself and not towards Justice Bradley.

The Chief Justice said when Justice Bradley approached Justice Prosser, she observed Justice Prosser put both his hands up and put them on the neck area of Justice Bradley. From the Chief' Justice's vantage point, it did not appear as though Justice Prosser exerted any pressure. She stated "I got the impression there wasn't any pressure because 1 didn't see her eyes bulge or hear her gasp for a breath". The Chief Justice also said "1 did not see her turn color."

So it wasn't an all-out strangling! No one asserted that. But there's a big difference between that — which no one asserted — and the mere putting the hands up in defense — which is what other witnesses saw. "Put them on the neck area" is quite neutral, but it seems as though she's not asserting that Prosser did that out of hostility toward Bradley. It's rather consistent with the version of the story that has Prosser merely reacting in a self-defensive reflex.

The Chief Justice was not watching Justice Prosser's face at all. She did not recall Justice Prosser saying a word during their physical contact. 

That is, Abrahamson provides no evidence that Prosser had an aggressive intent. In her account, Prosser does not advance toward Bradley or do anything other than put his hands up. The hands are "on" — not around — the neck. There's no pressure. And there's no anger.

Abrahamson agrees with other witnesses who said that Roggensack pulled Bradley "away from Justice Prosser's grasp." (I note that the word "grasp" suggests more was going on than the hands-up/on language the police used above.) Abrahamson agrees that Roggensack said "it wasn't like Ann."

Abrahamson said that she thought Prosser should have backed away when Bradley came at him but  "instead he went right for the throat." There's no discussion of the relative height of the Justices. It has been noted that Bradley is taller than Prosser, and that a man has limited options in holding off a woman who is coming at him. But Abrahamson thinks Bradley had already stopped and that Prosser extended his arms forward. [ADDED: Reading farther into the file, I see that the often-repeated belief that Bradley is tall is false. Bradley is 5'3" and Prosser is 5'9".]

Although Abrahamson said Prosser had never made physical contact before, she said he had "outburst" and was "disruptive" at times. She used the term "temper tantrums" and said she "had talked to some of her colleagues and friends about his behavior in the past to try and get outside opinions on how to deal with Justice Prosser." [ADDED: Justice Bradley said "You never know what will set him off," and   Abrahamson said "you never know what's going to set him off." Interesting phrase! You could say that if you're always trying to set somebody off, and only rarely finding the button.]

UPDATE 7: Wisconsin Supreme Court Human Resources Officer Margaret Brady was interviewed because she spoke with Abrahamson the day after the incident and because she attended the June 15th meeting with all the justices (and Chief Tubbs). Brady said that after Bradley gave her prepared speech, repeatedly using the term "chokehold," "Justice Roggensack said that everybody was committed to having a harassment free work environment, and 'You, Ann, went berserk. He wasn't putting pressure on your neck.'"

Brady quotes Prosser:

[H]e was "about one yard from Justice Bradley's office when Ann rushed at me with her fist in my face." Justice Prosser said, "Yeah, I said that I lost faith in the Chief Justice." Justice Prosser said he had "an instantaneous reaction to what happened" and that he felt he had four options of how to deal with it.

Brady didn't write down the 4 options, and, presumably, the reason Prosser chose the one he did (and what, exactly, it was). She did record that he said "two members of the court have made the job unpleasant and 'a deliberate scheme of intended abuse.'" [ADDED: In Prosser's interview, he said he could have pushed her head, her neck, her shoulders, or done nothing. But these are just "intellectual options," not anything he considered in the moment.] Justice Ziegler, according to Brady, spoke more generally about how to improve relations on the court, and Bradley "interrupted" to refocus on the "chokehold."

Justice Roggensack said, "If you are requesting that Justice Prosser get counseling, you both need help."

Justice Bradley responded by saying, "Stop enabling him."

At that point, Brady said, "the tension in the room was as high as it was in the Capitol on March 9th during the protests."

Brady described Bradley, unlike all the other justices (who are reserve), is "very animated" and "effusive." According to Brady, "it was not uncommon for Justice Bradley to talk with her hands or make a fist when she is talking to someone.... Margaret said if you were to ask someone in her office to imitate Justice Bradley, it would be very uncommon if they did not put their fist in the air and talk." This observation cuts 2 ways. On the one hand, it makes it seem more likely that Bradley was waving fists about that day. On the other hand — and this is Brady's interpretation — fist-waving is, for Bradley, an "extension of her expression" and "a very nonthreatening gesture."

[ADDED: In Prosser's interview, he said "he believes the Chief Justice uses Margaret as 'a prop', and she invites her to meetings when she wants to try to intimidate employees, no matter who the employees are."]

UPDATE 8: I'm reading the about the second interview with Justice Bradley, and this is on page 34 it says: "Justice Bradley said for someone to say that she had raised a fist to somebody would be completely out of character for her." A big discrepancy with Brady's statement (just above)? Perhaps you could distinguish "nonthreatening" fist waving and raising a fist to somebody. This interview also contains Bradley's description of trying to "calm" Justice Prosser down by "mimicking him." He was once pounding on the table while talking and she began to pound on the table the same way. Now, is that a way to calm somebody down or a way to wind them up?

UPDATE 9: Finally, the report of the interview with Justice Prosser. Prosser had his lawyer with him and recorded the interview. There is a long description of the substance of the argument among the judges, which culminating in Prosser's statement: "Chief Justice, I have lost confidence in your ability to lead this court." What others have described as "yelling" he calls speaking "with a lot of control."

Justice Prosser said immediately after he made this comment to the Chief Justice that Justice Bradley "charged me." Justice Prosser also described it as, "she exploded out of that room." Justice Prosser said prior to charging him, he said he believes that she was approximately two feet from the threshold of the doorway, inside of her office. Justice Prosser said she had gone approximately five feet total to get from where she was to him. Justice Prosser said he did not believe he moved an inch, he knew he never moved towards her, but he does not recall if he moved back at all. Justice Prosser said he could not initially exit because of the credenza behind him.

Justice Prosser said as he was telling the Chief Justice that he has lost confidence in her leadership his forearms were parallel to the ground with his hands and fingers extended out. Justice Prosser said he talks with his hands generally. Justice Prosser said again that Justice Bradley had "charged at me, it's simple as that" and she came out of her office towards him. Justice Prosser said he has heard some stories that she walked towards him and he said, "No, she charged at me". When she got near him, he said her right fist was in his face. Justice Prosser said as he was approached by Justice Bradley he believes that his hands came up slightly as he leaned backward, "It's as simple as that". Justice Prosser then said, "Did my hands touch her neck, yes, I admit that. Did I try to touch her neck, no, absolutely not, it was a total reflex".

Prosser asserted that Bradley never ordered him to get out of her office. She was "screaming something, and when his hands came in contact with her neck, he does not remember her saying anything about choking her, he remembers her saying, 'Don't you ever put your hands on me.'"

By the way, contrary to what I've read elsewhere, it turns out Prosser is 5'9" and Bradley is 5'3".

Justice Prosser had no recollection of what he thought during this because it happened so fast. Justice Prosser said when his hands came in contact with Justice Bradley's neck, his thought was immediately, "Oh my god, I'm touching her neck." It was immediately after this that Justice Bradley said "don't you ever put your hands on me." Justice Prosser said he does not remember her saying anything about him choking her. Justice Prosser said he was stunned by what happened.... 

Justice Prosser said he believed his hands had open palms and were facing Justice Bradley. Justice Prosser described what he did as a "blocking move" because of how Justice Bradley was coming at him. Justice Prosser said, "I remember feeling her neck." Justice Prosser went on to say that he remembers the warmth on the side of Justice Bradley's neck in his hands as his hands were touching her neck. Justice Prosser said he never squeezed Justice Bradley's neck at any point, and said that his hands were definitely on Justice Bradley's neck versus her shoulders. Justice Prosser said it was a "total reaction to what was happening." We asked Justice Prosser if he recalled what fingers may have touched Justice Bradley's neck, and how they were touching Justice Bradley's neck. Justice Prosser said he could not recall the exact location of his fingers, and he could not recall how many fingers were touching Justice Bradley's neck either during this time. He said he could only recall the warmth in Justice Bradley's neck. Justice Prosser said several times during our contact that this whole incident lasted "a split second". This included the time from Justice Bradley "charging" at him, his reaction with his hands on her neck, to him removing his hands from her neck. Justice Prosser said he had no recollection of his thumbs on Justice Bradley's neck at any point. Justice Prosser could only recall his fingers touching the side of her neck, with one hand on either side of her neck. Justice Prosser said at no point did he squeeze or apply any pressure. 

Justice Prosser said, "What does any self respecting man do when suddenly that man finds that his hands, or part of his hands are on a woman's neck? Get them off the neck as soon as possible". Justice Prosser said this was a "reflexive move". He said he was not hitting her or anything else. Justice Prosser said he did not say anything to Justice Bradley during this time and he does not recall her saying anything to him at this time either. Justice Prosser said he only recalls Justice Bradley saying, "don't you ever put your hands on me", and then telling him to get out of her office. Justice Prosser said Justice Bradley either stepped back, or somebody had pulled her back, but he did not know who would have pulled her back. Justice Prosser said he believed he went limp after he took his hands away from Justice Bradley's neck. Justice Prosser said he did not believe Justice Bradley was angry or upset prior to the time that she "charged me," but when she was telling him "don't you ever put your hands on me" and "get out of my office" she was screaming at him.

Prosser said he simply reacted quickly, without thinking and without having time to feel afraid. He said Bradley looked very angry, and he knows she doesn't like him. He thought there might be to the suggestion, offered by the police, that Bradley felt "a protective instinct for the Chief Justice , and he volunteered that Abrahamson might have some sort of "control" over Bradley.

UPDATE 10: Now we come to the interview with Rachel Graham, the law clerk for Justice Bradley. She overheard the incident. She didn't see it, so her statement is mainly a corroboration of various quotations.

Next is Justice Patience Roggensack:

Justice Roggensack said when Justice Bradley approached Justice Prosser, Justice Prosser raised his hands and put his hands up near Justice Bradley's neck, but his hands were "never in a choke hold." Justice Roggensack said she recalled Justice Bradley saying something to the effect of "don't put your hands on me." Justice Roggensack again stated Justice Bradley had a fist up at this time. Justice Roggensack then said she wanted to make it clear that at no point did Justice Prosser have Justice Bradley in a chokehold, and Justice Prosser never applied pressure with his hands on Justice Bradley. Justice Roggensack said as soon as Justice Prosser's hands were placed on Justice Bradley, she got in between the two of them and she immediately told Justice Bradley that this was not like her.

Justice Roggensack said Justice Bradley had always been a sort of protector for the Chief Justice because they go back a long way and they are friends. Justice Roggensack said if she had not got in between the two of them, she believes Justice Bradley would have "smacked him in the face with her fist." Justice Roggensack said everything happened really fast during this incident. Justice Roggensack said Justice Prosser should have walked away from the incident and Justice Bradley should not have come at him the way she did. Justice Roggensack said in her opinion, "they were both out of line and they were both very angry." Justice Roggensack again said Justice Bradley was "trying to get at him with her fists." Justice Roggensack said she did not recall what was said between Justices Bradley and Prosser as Justice Bradley was approaching him during the incident.

Roggensack said that what caused Bradley to "walk with rapidity" towards Prosser was his statement to Abrahamson that he's lost confidence in her leadership. Prosser had never been arguing with Bradley. Roggensack said that Prosser's hands made contact with Bradley's neck but he never "choked" her.

Roggensack faults both Bradley and Prosser, even though "she could not say if Justice Prosser's reaction was justified, and she could not say whether or not Justice Prosser had any choice but to place his hands on Justice Bradley." Apparently, the speed of Bradley's movement toward Prosser made it hard for her to judge Prosser's reaction.

At the meeting on June 15th, "Justice Roggensack said Justice Bradley mentioned how Justice Prosser had her in a chokehold, and Justice Roggensack responded by saying he did not have her in a chokehold at any point. Justice Bradley responded to her by saying 'that's because you stopped him.' Justice Roggensack told Justice Bradley that she did not stop him from anything, and added, 'I stopped you from hitting him.' Justice Roggensack said Justice Bradley did not react or respond to her making this statement."

Roggensack described Bradley as Abrahamson's protector:

Justice Roggensack believed Justice Bradley was the person that released the info to the press regarding the incident from February 2010 in which Justice Prosser had called the Chief Justice a bitch. Justice Roggensack said that was a closed meeting during which this was said. Justice Roggensack said she recalls during that meeting the Chief Justice was "needling" Justice Prosser at that time, and added that she felt the Chief Justice was "needling" Justice Prosser when they met with her on June 13, 2011 in Justice Bradley's office. Justice Roggensack said when Justice Prosser gets needled by the Chief Justice, and begins to react and respond to the Chief Justice; Justice Bradley steps in right away to protect the Chief Justice.

Oh, lord, that is such lowly office politics! It's not criminal, though. Roggensack thought both Bradley and Prosser could use some anger management lessons.

UPDATE 11: Justice Crooks wasn't present for the incident, so let's concentrate on his statements about the work environment generally.  He relates a story of Justice Prosser calling him a "viper" back in 1999. Interestingly, the problem at the time was that Prosser was supporting Shirley Abrahamson in her bid for reelection and Crooks was not.

Justice Crooks said he has noted Justice Prosser "loses his cool repeatedly." Justice Crooks has witnessed Justice Prosser get red and pound on tables with his fists, and get louder and louder in tone during meetings, conferences and sometimes even during public meetings. Justice Crooks said there are times that nothing happens that trigger Justice Prosser losing his cool. Justice Crooks said he estimated Justice Prosser "explodes and storms out of a room" approximately    three to four times a year.

Justice Crooks said on February 22, 2010, he and Justice Bradley met with John Voelker, Director of State Courts, and Margaret Brady, asking that something be done about Justice Prosser because they felt there was an escalation in violence. This meeting was a result of a February 10, 2010 closed meeting with the Justices, during which, Justice Prosser made the comment to the Chief Justice, "You are a terrible chief. If you do not wi thdraw you are going to be destroyed".    The Chief Justice had responded by saying, "Are you threatening me?" and Justice Prosser said, "Yes, ... you are a bitch" and added, "There will be a war against you and it will not be a ground war". Justice Crooks and Bradley had concerns for the Chief Justice after this, and therefore went to speak with Voelker and Brady.    Justice Crooks said both his law clerk and assistants had told him they felt they were working in "a hostile work environment."...

After the February 2010 incident, Justice Crooks said the chief justice had a friend, who is either a psychiatrist or psychologist; evaluate Justice Prosser's behavior.  Justice Crooks said the behavior was evaluated only by what the Chief Justice told the psychiatrist at the time. The psychiatrist had not talked to anybody about Justice Prosser's behavior, including Justice Prosser. Justice Crooks said the psychiatrist believed that it would be highly unlikely Justice Prosser's behavior would escalate to any sort of violence. Justice Crooks said that it was clear, based on the June 13, 2011 incident, that the psychiatrist was wrong.

Crooks goes on to talk about who he feels "he has to watch what he says to Justice Prosser at all times."  He thinks Prosser should get anger management therapy or something more and guessed that he might be "paranoid or something" (after Prosser said — supposedly — that he thought the Dane County judges  and police are corrupt).

UPDATE 12: Finally, there's Justice Michael Gableman:

Justice Gableman said after the chief justice told them that she might not be ready with her decision until the end of the month, Justice Prosser then, while hunched forward and hands together as if he was praying, said in a "meek and intently sincere" voice, "Chief I have lost total confidence in your leadership."    Justice Gableman said he was not shouting, there was no volume to his voice, there was no swearing, it was not said in a hostile way, and added that it was "a fairly unremarkable comment".

Justice Gableman said it was this comment that he believes prompted Justice Bradley to rush over to Justice Prosser. Justice Gableman said he had not seen Justice Bradley in her office from where he was standing, until she was "rushing towards Justice Prosser" out of her office. Justice Gableman said Justice Bradley got within approximately one foot of Justice Prosser and had what he believed was her right fist in his face. Justice Gableman said he recalled Justice Bradley's blue glasses in her right fist at this time because he remembered thinking that her glasses were about to break. Justice Gableman said Justice Bradley's fist was going towards and away from Justice Prosser's face in almost a punching motion. Justice Gableman said he wanted to make clear that Justice Bradley's fist was not going up and down, but rather in and out towards and away from Justice Prosser during this incident. Justice Gableman said Justice Bradley's fist was in Justice Prosser's face and came within about an inch every time she would extend her fist while speaking to Justice Prosser. Justice Gableman said Justice Bradley was telling Justice Prosser, "You have no right to talk to the chief justice that way." Justice Gableman said Justice Prosser had "a look of shock and surprise" and described him as "looking up" at Justice Bradley. Justice Gableman believes Justice Bradley is a little bit taller than Justice Prosser. Justice Gableman then used the analogy of a photograph regarding President Johnson where he is talking to and leaning over a senator. 

Here's that photograph.

Justice Gableman said he recalled Justice Roggensack saying, "Ann this isn't the person you are. This isn't you." Justice Gableman believed Justice Roggensack was pulling on Justice Bradley's left arm at this time. Justice Gableman said Justice Prosser raised his hands and "pushed" Justice Bradley in "a defensive move". Justice Gableman said he believed Justice Prosser's hands were on the area where the shoulders meet the neck on Justice Bradley at this time. Justice Gableman said it was not a violent push, and after a brief pause he recalled Justice Bradley saying, "you choked me, you choked me." Justice Gableman said he immediately responded to Justice Bradley by saying "he didn't choke you, he pushed you to get your fist out of his face."

I didn't notice that anyone else corroborated that quote. Gableman also misjudged the relative heights of Bradley and Prosser, so I don't know what to make of this story he tells about an incident in 2008:

Justice Gableman said he had been on the court for approximately one month at the time, and while in a meeting with the other justices, Justice Crooks was reading the horoscopes.

Horoscopes!

Justice Gableman said he remembers making a comment to the chief justice in a joking manner and used her first name, Shirley, during this comment towards her.

The old line from "Airplane!"?

Justice Gableman said right after he said the chief justice's first name, Justice Bradley came over to him, hit him on the back of the head and told him that he needed to show respect to the chief.

Hit him in the head!

That's enough for now. I've read the entire file and summarized or copied what seemed most useful here. I'll reread this tomorrow and pull out a few things and make some observations.

What can the Wisconsin Supreme Court do to restore the public's confidence that this court is really a court?

Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson sent out a memo offering some ideas about restoring decorum (and public confidence), including opening judicial conferences to the public:

The presumption should be that all conferences are open.

a. The open conference could be held in the hearing room.

b. The open conference could be held in the closed conference room and streamed to the public.

As I said when we discussed this earlier, I don't see how this could be fair to the parties or how it is consistent with the idea deciding cases according to the legal texts and precedents (rather than policy preferences and political orientation). You'd have judges looking more like legislators, which is exactly what they shouldn't do if they want to look judicial.

The Chief Justice also proposes:

An expert on small group dynamics could be retained at no expense to the taxpayers to work with each Justice for ways in which the Justice can work in a more constructive manner....

Who would choose this expert? Would this be a variation on the demand — made by Justice Bradley after the "chokehold" incident — that Justice Prosser submit to "anger management" therapy? Yes, now all the Justices would submit, but submit to whom? What biases and preferences would this outsider bring to the project? (Sorry, I just can't picture anybody being neutrally professional anymore.)

Another proposal of the Chief's:

An internal operating procedure or rule could be adopted that 4 Justices not be considered a quorum or a binding majority that can direct action by the Chief Justice or Court staff unless all Justices have been advised of the "meeting/conference" and all Justices have had the ability to participate in the "meeting/conference" and in the decision making. 

That would empower the 3-justice minority to control the 4-justice majority.  It's hard to picture this court in this state having that kind of trust. (I'm thinking of how hard it was for the 4 conservative justices to find and interact with the 3 liberal justices on the day of the "chokehold" incident and also the way the Democratic minority thwarted the operation of the state senate last winter by hiding out in Illinois. The "fleebagger" strategy was only feasible because of a supermajority quorum rule.)

The Chief Justice would also like a separate "tribunal (not composed of Justices)" to make the final call on whether a Justice should recuse himself in a case and a process of replacing recused Justices with "a judge be selected at random." Obviously, you can see the potential for wresting the majority out of the hands of the 4 conservatives the people of Wisconsin have elected to the court. Imagine the endless strategic fighting over recusals!

Sorry to be so cynical. I can't help it, and I don't have a better solution to restoring the prestige of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

IN THE COMMENTS: bagoh20 said:

All they can do to make it better is shut up and get to work, but there is huge toolbox of things they can do to make it worse....

Althouse, isn't your philosophy that just doing nothing is often the best course? I happen to agree, and it's part of my business philosophy too. 

Yes! Nothing! I recommend nothing. Think about "better than nothing" as being, in reality, a high standard.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Prosser asks the Judicial Commission to release its records of its inquiry into ethics charges against him.

This is the notorious "chokehold" matter, which we talked about 2 days ago. You may remember that I said:

I want to see the internal records. Judicial ethics matter, but who's watching the ethics of the ethics watcher, the Judicial Commission? The people have a compelling interest in seeing what happened.

Why, for example, was there no charge against Justice Bradley, who, based on the police investigation, which I've read, seems to have charged across the room at Prosser and was perhaps waving fists in his face, causing him to make a reflexive, defensive move that touched her. And she seems to have accused him of putting her in a "chokehold," which none of testimony (from 6 of the 7 justices) supports.

Why take what Prosser did out of context? That alone raises an inference of bias on the Commission....

Prosser must waive confidentiality first. He's going public with his assertion that the Commission was biased, but he still needs to talk to lawyers about whether to waive confidentiality. If he does, I assume the Commission will have to release the records to rebut the inference of bias. If, on the other hand, after making the accusation of bias, Prosser fails to waive confidentiality, I think Prosser should resign and let Scott Walker appoint a replacement.

Okay. So updating my analysis to reflect the news: Prosser need not resign, and the Commission must now release the records. If it does not, we should assume the records reflect bias on the part of the Commission, as charged by Justice Prosser.

"Liberal Justice Opts Out: Wisconsin Supreme Court Race Heats Up."

Tweets Grok, with the disclaimer, "Grok is an early feature and can make mistakes. Verify its outputs."

In a significant development for the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley has announced she will not seek reelection next year, with her current term ending on July 31, 2025. This decision has stirred up the race for control of the court, as it could potentially shift the balance of power from the current 4-3 liberal majority. The announcement has improved the odds for conservatives to regain the majority they lost last year. The race for her seat is already heating up, with conservative and former Attorney General Brad Schimel announcing his candidacy. This news has far-reaching implications for the state's judicial landscape and political dynamics in the swing state.

I blogged many, many words about Ann Walsh Bradley, back in 2011, the days of the Wisconsin protests, e.g., "No criminal charges against Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser or Justice Anne Walsh Bradley in the so-called 'chokehold' incident," "I've finally waded through the 'chokehold' investigation file," and — sorry this is coming up on the morning of the obituary for O.J. Simpson — "Attacks upon the neck."

We need to see the internal records of the Wisconsin Judicial Commission in the case against Justice Prosser.

Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser — who has been charged with 3 counts of judicial misconduct in the notorious "chokehold" incident — wants the Wisconsin Judicial Commission "to release records of its deliberations in the matter to allow him and others to determine whether the commission was... politically biased against him":

"As far as I'm concerned, I don't think I have anything to hide here," Prosser said. "I don't know who made the complaints. I don't know what their (commission members') votes were. I don't know if it was a unanimous vote or not a unanimous vote."...

Prosser... charged that the Judicial Commission's makeup is inherently biased because five of the nine members are appointed by the sitting governor, who is a partisan.

In his case, at least some of those who participated in discussion about the ethics charges against Prosser, a former Republican speaker of the Assembly, were appointees of former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.

I want to see the internal records. Judicial ethics matter, but who's watching the ethics of the ethics watcher, the Judicial Commission? The people have a compelling interest in seeing what happened.

Don't call me Shirley/Buddy.

The file on the police investigation of the Wisconsin Supreme Court "chokehold" incident contains accounts of 2 incidents in which someone used a too-familiar name and the immediate consequence was an inappropriate touching. In putting these 2 accounts together here, I don't mean to vouch for their truth. I simply want to juxtapose them for the purpose of examining their similarity.

First is the "chokehold" incident itself, as described by Justice Ann Walsh Bradley (page 34):  Justice Bradley said when she approached Justice Prosser, she said to him, "Buddy, get out of my office." Justice Bradley explained that the sobriquet "Buddy" put her "in control" and Justice Prosser "in the diminutive." By "in the diminutive," Bradley meant something like making him seem small or putting him in the state "of being familiarly known, lovable, pitiable, or contemptible." There were accompanying gestures from Bradley, and, as we know by now, Prosser proceeded to put his hands around her neck.

In the second incident, from 2008 (page 64), Justice Gableman "remembers making a comment to the chief justice in a joking manner and used her first name, Shirley, during this comment towards her."

Justice Gableman said right after he said the chief justice's first name, Justice Bradley came over to him, hit him on the back of the head and told him that he needed to show respect to the chief. Justice Gableman said that he believed Justice Bradley was not joking because nobody was laughing at the time. Justice Gableman said he has not told anyone about that incident and has not talked about that incident with anyone, including Justice Bradley, after it happened.

In both instances, a name is used and it's Justice Bradley who regards the name as disrespectful. In both instances, the name immediately precedes a regrettable touching. In one instance, Justice Bradley is the person who says the name and receives the regrettable touching, and in the other, she hears the name and performs the regrettable touching.

In the first instance, the person who used the name did so with an intent to express disrespect, and the named person is the one who does the touching. In the second instance, the named person's reaction isn't even described. We don't know what the Chief Justice thought of Justice Gableman calling her "Shirley." (It's simply her first name, not a diminutive.) It is Justice Bradley who imposed the interpretation of disrespect and who inflicted retribution (in this story, as told by Gableman, whose veracity remains in issue).

So we have 2 stories depicting Justice Bradley as having a heightened sensitivity to the wounding effect of an over-familiar form of address. In one, she deliberately uses a hostile epithet to diminish and control someone who is already the target of her anger. In the other, someone becomes the target of her anger after he uses someone's real name in what seems to have been a reasonably friendly if awkward effort at conversation.

The NYT and Rush Limbaugh have a similar take on the NYC chokehold incident, but there's a key difference.

The NYT in "It Wasn’t Just the Chokehold/Eric Garner, Daniel Pantaleo and Lethal Police Tactics":

The Garner killing must lead to major changes in policy, particularly in the use of 'broken windows' policing — a strategy in which Officer Pantaleo specialized, according to a report in September by WNYC, which found that he had made hundreds of arrests since joining the force in 2007, leading to at least 259 criminal cases, all but a fraction of those involving petty offenses. The department must find a better way to keep communities safe than aggressively hounding the sellers of loose cigarettes.

Rush Limbaugh had a similar but different focus:

[T]he sole reason why a guy like Eric Garner even has a job selling loosies is that the City of New York is hell-bent on collecting its precious taxes from $13 a pack.  So here come all these black market guys trying to take advantage of the fact that people will pay much less than that if they're given the chance.  This is what the left, liberals never understand about their idiotic tax policies....

Remember, the cops had been summoned by a minority-owned business complaining this guy was hurting his business. You had a minority-owned business owner call the cops and say, "Hey, look, I got a guy selling illegal black market cigarettes out in front of my store. You gotta come do something about it." The cops showed up, because it's a focal point for the city and its tax collection efforts. It was more than one local business. A bunch of them were saying that Garner and people like him were hurting their businesses with cheap cigarettes. He was driving business away....

The people in charge of all this have themselves set the stage for black market circumstances to prosper and thrive. And hello Eric Garner selling loosies. I still can't get over that. Individual illegal cigarettes. It's just stunning....

Number of times the word tax/taxes appears in the Limbaugh transcript: 40.

Number of times the word tax/taxes appears in the NYT article: 0.

"This honestly feels like a new low: not being able to clearly condemn a public murder because the victim was of a social status some would deem ‘too low’ to care about."

Tweeted Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, quoted in "Mayor Adams rips AOC for rush to conclude that Jordan Neely was 'murdered'" (NY Post).

The city medical examiner ruled Wednesday that Neely’s death was a homicide due to “compression of neck (chokehold).” Witnesses say that Neely was having a mental episode when another straphanger, identified as a 24-year-old Marine from Queens, took him down from behind and placed him in a chokehold for about 15 minutes. Still, Adams stressed that there are “so many unknowns at this time.”

What we still don't know about the Wisconsin Supreme Court "chokehold" incident: Who leaked the story to the press?

Here's something I wrote in early July, a week after the story first appeared in the media:

Judges are supposed to work out their human frailty problems outside of public view. Which is why the "chokehold" incident should never have been leaked to the press. That's why my writing on the subject has focused on who leaked and why. I would like to think that it was someone other than one of the Justices, someone who didn't understand the stakes for the prestige of the court. If it was, in fact, one of the Justices, what was the reason? Why would you damage the reputation of the court like that instead of working on resolving the problems quietly internally?

And don't tell me: Because choking somebody is a serious crime! If it were that straightforward, the choker should have been arrested — or the charge should have come to light — shortly after the incident. Instead, a politically partisan journalist broke the story 12 days later. Someone made a decision to go public through him, and that makes it look like a political tactic. Is that someone a supreme court justice? Intolerable.

Now, the investigation has taken place and we have had the opportunity to read the entire file. It does not reveal who went to the media — to Bill Lueders of WisconsinWatch.org — with the story. It does reveal that the story originally published by Lueders was shamefully inadequate, because it said only that Justice Prosser "allegedly grabbed fellow Justice Ann Walsh Bradley around the neck in an argument." It had nothing about Bradley's initiating the physical encounter by "charging at" him and suddenly and deliberately getting right in his personal space, possibly with a fist in his face. Either Lueders left out Bradley's initial physical aggression, or he received the story in that inadequate form. So who talked to Lueders, and did that person tell him the story with crucial details omitted to cast Prosser in the worst possible light?

Another thing we know from the investigation file is that, 2 days after the incident, Justice Bradley gave a carefully prepared speech to the assembled justices in which she framed — in her own terms — a problem that needed to be solved. Portraying Prosser as the workplace bully, she stated: "If I cannot get any assurance from you, the court, that this problem is going to be addressed, then I will go to the outside and take other means." Since she did not get that assurance, the record gives support to the inference that it was Justice Bradley who went to the media. The investigators did not ask her if she made good on her threat and took "other means" by going public through Bill Lueders, perhaps because it did not relate to whether a crime was committed, but I think the public deserves to know.

On page 43 of the investigative file, Justice Prosser seems to imply that it was Justice Bradley who leaked the story (and leaked it in a damagingly incomplete form):

Justice Prosser said when there is a charge made by a woman that a man choked you, and you leak it out to the press allover the world, and that man is on the WI Supreme Court, "You are doing absolute maximum damage to a public figure that you can do". Justice Prosser said he did not feel Justice Bradley was telling the truth because if she were, then she would have to say how she charged at him.

It was not damaging solely to Prosser. It was damaging to the entire court and to the viability of the rule of law in Wisconsin. As I wrote, back in early July: "Why would you damage the reputation of the court like that instead of working on resolving the problems quietly internally?" I'm still trying to understand how anyone who cared about the prestige and legitimacy of the Wisconsin Supreme Court would take this matter public.

But we do know, from the text of Justice Bradley's own speech, that she thought the threat of going public was something she could use for her own purposes to compel  the other justices to act as though the problem was Prosser and Prosser alone. Frame it my way, don't blame me at all, see me only as the victim, or I will take it upon myself to devastate this court's reputation. Even if Bradley was not the one who leaked to Lueders — in the all-Prosser's-fault form — that was, to put it mildly, injudicious and self-serving.

And I still have the question I had on July 3d:

Someone made a decision to go public through [the politically partisan journalist Bill Lueders], and that makes it look like a political tactic. Is that someone a supreme court justice?

I said it then, and I can't see any reason to change my opinion: Intolerable.

Greta Van Susteren asks if anyone is demanding that Justices Prosser and Bradley step down.

"Are any of the newspaper asking for them to step down? People have very serious disputes and their whole lives depend on decisions on the Supreme Court, and this isn't fair to the people. Are newspaper editors saying they got to go?"

The answer from her guest, Jason Stein of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

You are right this is sort of funny, but no joke. One thing that I've heard the time when this all came out Governor Walker talked about the possibility of having an appointed rather than elected court. And that didn't go anywhere. It didn't seem like that proposal -- seems like it would be dead on arrival in our legislature. But certainly there's been a number of people saying, look, this can't go on. Something has got to change.

Total failure to answer the question!

Should Prosser and/or Bradley resign?
	Yes. Both.
	Yes. Bradley.
	Yes. Prosser.
	Yes. Prosser, Bradley, and at least one more.
	Yes. They should all resign!
	No. Keep them all. Move on.
pollcode.com free polls

By the way, I'm hearing a rumor that Justice Crooks might resign. I don't know what that's about, but I was just reading about the 1995 election that originally brought Justice Bradley to the court. She defeated none other than Patrick Crooks in that election, and Crooks (who later won election, in 1996), was the conservative in the race, with the backing of Gov. Tommy Thompson and many Republicans. Bradley had the liberal backing, including the AFL-CIO. Both candidates portrayed themselves as "strict constructionists," and Bradley emphasized judicial independence and the importance of keeping the judiciary above politics. Crooks criticized her for her unwillingness to talk about how she would decide even cases that had been decided in the past. (Sorry for the absence of links there. I'm reading old newspaper articles, and they are not up on line.)

Crooks — who now votes in a bloc with Chief Justice Abrahamson and Justice Bradley, reaching liberal outcomes — called himself "the conservative for the court." When Bradley cited judicial ethics as her reason for refusing to address the issues, he said, after he lost: "I think it's unfortunate we didn't have a chance to show there was a clear, ideological difference between the two of us... It's important for the public to have a sense of candidates' judicial philosophy and how they go about making decisions." Bradley, by contrast, said she won because she refrained from labeling herself and Crooks did not. She said: "I think people ended up not wanting those kinds of conservative labels in a Supreme Court race... You have to be careful not to politicize the court."

A mere 3 years after joining the court, in 1999, Crooks considered resigning. He told the editorial board of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the problem was the “way Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson is running the court.... abusing her position by micromanaging the court system, making unilateral decisions on administrative matters that should come to the full court, and jeopardizing the court’s neutrality by awarding grants to groups with lobbyists and social agendas."

Crooks, you may remember, was the only justice who was not present for the "chokehold" incident. He had gone home for the day. On another occasion — in 2008, when Justice Bradley allegedly hit Justice Gableman in the head for calling the Chief "Shirley" — Crooks was — allegedly — reading the horoscopes. Crooks was born May 16, 1938. That makes him a Taurus. It says here: "Can you take the day off? Now is the perfect time to do just that. If you’re locked in for some level of responsibility, you can still make the most of your freewheeling energy by creating a party atmosphere." So... no announcement today, probably.

ADDED: From the investigative file (and relevant to Crooks's attitude toward the recent incident):

Justice Crooks said early in his tenure as Supreme Court Justice, he recalls a meeting in which Justice Prosser had called him a "viper" in an aggressive manner. Justice Crooks believed it was sometime around the fall of 1999 when Chief Justice Abrahamson was running for re-election for supreme court. Justice Crooks said he was not supporting her re-election at the time, and Justice Prosser was. It was during a meeting with the other Justices that Justice Crooks stated he was not going to support the Chief Justice's re-election. Justice Prosser had stood up and aggressively called him a "viper" during that meeting because he was not supporting the Chief Justice.  Justice Crooks recalled Justice Prosser had walked out of the room, and slammed the door hard enough to cause the glass to vibrate.    Justice Crooks said he had never forgotten that incident, and believes since then things have been either just as aggressive from Justice Prosser, and in some cases they have escalated.

The special prosecutor said no criminal charges, but what will the Wisconsin Judicial Commission do about the "chokehold" incident?

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel examines the case:

The judicial commission is separately investigating the case for violations of the state's code of ethics for judges. That code says that a judge "shall avoid impropriety" and "shall respect and comply with the law and shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary."

Clearly, leaking the story — and leaking it in a deceptive form — was a decision to diminish public confidence in the court. (You might want to question whether the code should say that: What if the court doesn't deserve public confidence in its integrity and impartiality? Are the judges compelled to keep quiet about it?)

If the judicial commission found any wrongdoing, the case would go first to a three-judge panel and then to the Supreme Court to consider.... If the Supreme Court finds misconduct in a judicial ethics case, it can reprimand, censure, suspend or remove a judge.

So, wouldn't Prosser and Bradley recuse themselves? That would leave a 3-2 conservative majority on the court. If the commission found wrongdoing by both Bradley and Prosser, then that majority could attempt to display neutrality by voting to remove both justices. I'm partly serious, but mainly being amusing. You do see what is amusing about portraying that as neutral-looking. Governor Scott Walker would have the power to make 2 appointments. From a political perspective, losing Prosser would put conservatives in a better position. They'd have a new justice, without the baggage, and he/she would be smart, strong, and relatively young. And, of course, Bradley would be replaced by a smart, strong, relatively young justice too. Both new justices would naturally be principled conservatives with excellent credentials.

But they aren't going to be removed. I predict a reprimand or at most censure. Still, I must say, that if the tables were turned and the liberal justice had done what Prosser did and the conservative justice had done what Bradley did, there would be cries for removing the justice who did what Bradley did. Look at the investigative file. Picture the Wisconsin protesters picking through that in search of material to make the strongest case against the justice who did what Bradley did. And if the Democratic party controlled the legislature? The protesters would be screaming for impeachment.

But the conservatives are mostly giving Bradley a pass. As long as Prosser's going to be okay, let's just forget about it. That means it paid off to frame a completely unfair charge against Prosser and demonize him in the press, which is exactly what damaged public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary. Who did that? Who leaked the story to the politically partisan journalist, Bill Lueders? Surely, the judicial commission is going to tell us. It may not have been relevant to the question whether there should be a criminal prosecution — which would explain why the police investigative file doesn't tell us. But it's obviously central to the inquiry into judicial ethics.

America and Russia — described via Drudgetaposition.

Rand Paul's hand expresses a government by reason and deliberation — law — and Vladimir Putin's chokehold says: Government by brute force.

"Why hasn't Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson held a news conference and said something along the lines of 'OK, we get it...'"

"'... We understand the public has lost respect for some justices and perhaps even come to doubt the court's credibility. We understand there are bitter divisions that occasionally explode into personal attacks. We agree with the public that physical attacks have no place in the court. More important, we understand the need to do something. We're going to spend a weekend on retreat with a mediator who will help us deal with our differences so that they don't ever again blow up into physical attacks or fistfights or chokeholds or altercations that demean this office.'"

Asks the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. How can you write that out and not immediately see the answer to your own question? Judges just don't do things like that. It would be great for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to figure out a way to look like... a court. (And by "court," I mean the ideal of a court possessed by ordinary citizens who care about the role of the courts in a democratic system.) But a news conference like that wouldn't seem judicial at all. Bringing in an outside mediator, turning yourselves into a geriatric therapy group — how can talking about that work?

Judges are supposed to work out their human frailty problems outside of public view. Which is why the "chokehold" incident should never have been leaked to the press. That's why my writing on the subject has focused on who leaked and why. I would like to think that it was someone other than one of the Justices, someone who didn't understand the stakes for the prestige of the court. If it was, in fact, one of the Justices, what was the reason? Why would you damage the reputation of the court like that instead of working on resolving the problems quietly internally?

And don't tell me: Because choking somebody is a serious crime! If it were that straightforward, the choker should have been arrested — or the charge should have come to light — shortly after the incident. Instead, a politically partisan journalist broke the story 12 days later. Someone made a decision to go public through him, and that makes it look like a political tactic. Is that someone a supreme court justice? Intolerable.

Justice Bradley's speech to the Wisconsin Supreme Court Justices and the nuances of identifying the workplace bully.

Here's the original document, the typed-up speech that Justice Ann Walsh Bradley gave to the assembled Justices 2 days after the so-called "chokehold" incident. As we know from the memos in the police investigation file, page 19, Justice Bradley said "she had typed these notes and rehearsed them like a speech because she wanted to tell the other justices how she was feeling."

In the original document, Bradley identifies "a right to go to my workplace without fear of verbal abuse or physical abuse." This is the workplace bully problem, and it's important, but the question I have is: Who gets to identify the bully?

We know from the investigation file that Bradley suddenly rushed up to Justice Prosser and got in his face. The interviews vary a bit in their emphasis on the speed with which she entered his personal space, but everyone agrees that the physical movement began with Bradley, and Prosser's physical act was a reaction to what she did. Bradley also acted first in identifying the bully, the one who needs to be controlled by the rights that others have to a "workplace without fear." But what if Prosser had acted first and characterized Bradley as the aggressor for rushing at him (with, according to some of the interviews, fists raised)? Then Bradley would have found herself on the receiving end, as the violator of the right she deems important. A right like that, if we are not careful, would empower the most aggressive person in the workplace!

Who gets to frame the story of the workplace bully? A person who fears accusation as the aggressor might opt for a preemptive strike, and that could have been the case here. During the incident, Justice Roggensack pulled Bradley away from Prosser and said, more than once, "This is not like you." Bradley describes herself becoming very emotional. Perhaps she was shocked by her own behavior and self-defensively saw it as in her interest to portray Prosser as the aggressor. From the memo on the Bradley interview, page 34:

Justice Bradley said as she was approaching Justice Prosser on June 13, "I was in control, I knew exactly what I was doing." Justice Bradley said when she approached Justice Prosser, she said to him, "Buddy, get out of my office." Justice Bradley said she remembers specifically saying the word "buddy" to him as she was telling him to leave her office. Justice Bradley recalled this because as she was talking to her daughter about this incident after the fact, her daughter had mentioned how the only other time she heard her use the term "buddy" was three years ago when her daughter and her were in Bangkok, Thailand, in a taxicab. Justice Bradley said the taxicab driver was not taking them where they needed to go so she felt she needed to take control and she remembers saying, "Buddy, you take us back where you picked us up." Justice Bradley said that was the only other time she could remember using the term "buddy". Justice Bradley said, "Buddy puts me in control and them in the diminutive."    Justice Bradley again said she knew exactly what she was doing and saying to Justice Prosser on the evening of June 13, and added, "I intended to do it just the way I did it." Justice Bradley repeated several different times during our conversation with her that she was in control on June 13, 2011 and she knew exactly what she was doing the whole time.

Justice Bradley then said, "This aggressiveness they are trying to spin is not true."

Isn't it interesting that she denied her own aggressiveness right after describing herself as a woman in control and deliberately exercising domination? What if Justice Prosser had felt and acted in a similar way? He would have made a speech focusing on Bradley as the aggressor. He would have said, as Bradley said at the July 15th meeting:

I have a right... to enter my workplace without any fear of verbal abuse or physical abuse...

If I cannot get any assurance from you, the court, that this problem is going to be addressed, then I will go to the outside and take other means. 

Go to the outside and take other means?! Is that a victim seeking the shelter of the protections of the law, or is it the bully trying to instill fear? It's not too clear! But we know that Bradley, in the original incident, deliberately sought control. And in the the June 15th meeting, she also sought control. She had her prepared speech. It was studded with legalisms and warnings. She demanded submission, or else. You don't need to look past her own words to see that.

"Will Judicial Commission remake give conservative justices a break?"

This is pretty intra-Wisconsin, but if you've been following the Wisconsin Supreme Court "chokehold" story, you might be interested in this.

Last week Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson released a letter to John Dawson telling him that the court, would not be not re-appointing him to the commission. The letter, signed by Abrahamson and the other two so-called “liberals” on the court, expressed regret at the decision by the conservative majority.

John Dawson, the chairman of the commission, has served on the panel since 2006. With his removal, the panel will be scrubbed of all commissioners who filed ethical complaints against Prosser and two other sitting conservative justices over the past four years.

"If Ann Althouse was assaulted, so was Justice Bradley. Or, if you prefer, if Justice Bradley wasn't assaulted, then neither was Ann Althouse."

Crazy-ass thread hijack over at Blaska's, by one Jeremy Schultz. Meade pushes back, as do other commenters. It's interesting to me, as a law professor, to witness this struggle with analogies. When people are pig-headedly committed, politically, their efforts to grapple with facts are comical... or irritating — depending on your emotional orientation. Me, I'm serene, even amidst the anti-Althousiana, especially when Meade is on task.

(Click on the relevant tags if you need more information on the Wisconsin Supreme Court "chokehold" allegation or the attack I recently experienced. Note that I didn't charge or rush up to the man who attacked me, nor did I evince anger or order him to do anything.)