Update III: SCR 60.03 A judge shall avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety in all of the judge’s activities.
A. SCR 60.03(1) states: "A judge 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."
That's cited from a decision (March 22, 2004) of the Judicial Conduct Advisory Committee (OPINION 03-1) deciding that "a judge (is) required, after a contested election, to recuse himself or herself from contested matters involving a former campaign manager," for "a reasonable period of time."
Surely, Ziegler's conflicts, her pattern of conflicts, are much more serious and cause much more damage in not avoiding the "impropriety and the appearance of impropriety," promoting the public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.
Update II: Hearing ended.
Update: Cory Liebmann live-blogging the Judicial Conduct Panel hearing.
Dee J. Hall, reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal, must have looked long and far to find a source willing to knock down criticism of Justice Annette Ziegler’s presiding over numerous cases in which Ziegler had a clear financial interest, violative of Wisconsin conflict of interest rules.
Hall has been skillfully covering the case for the State Journal, and in Sunday’s piece she found an authoritative source who well represents the character of Ziegler’s dismissive attitude toward the public interest: Herbert Kritzer, a former UW Law School professor now teaching at William Mitchell School of Law in Saint Paul, Minnesota.
Kritzer’s quote is incredible: “I would describe the misconduct as significant in the sense that it raises some questions about Justice Ziegler’s judgment. … But I wouldn’t call it serious, in the sense that I think it extremely unlikely that it had any actual impact on any decisions then-Judge Ziegler made.”
The Judicial Conduct Panel now investigating Ziegler will hold a hearing today (Monday, November 19) and the Wisconsin Supreme Court will ultimately decide the fate of Ziegler, disciplining one of its own members for the first time in state history.
As the State Journal’s Hall points out, “The disciplinary options available to the court include reprimand, censure, suspension, and expulsion.”
But what has Wisconsin jurists appalled is Ziegler and Kritzer’s blasé mindset toward the conflict-of-interest rules (State Code of Judicial Conduct and its enforcers) that guide Wisconsin judges.
The rules exist to assure the public and all parties involved in litigation that Wisconsin judges hearing cases will be impartial, neutral, and fair in all facets of a given legal case, meaning that a judge is to be regarded as an utterly objective entity who will base decisions upon the law and nothing else.
“You won’t hear many attorneys saying this out loud (on the record), but this professor (Kritzer) is nuts. It doesn’t matter how she (Ziegler) ruled. She had a conflict of interest and failed to disclose it. That’s unforgivable,” one jurist commented. “For a law professor to say that (presiding over cases in which one has a conflict of interests) is not serious is ridiculous. It’s always serious, and it always matters that even if circumstances exist that would only lead to a perception of a conflict of interest, perception is vitally important so people know their judges are not corrupt.”
Public interest groups agree.
One such group, One Wisconsin Now maintains a website detailing the “(Judicial Conduct) panel’s requests with links to the documents and information sought … .”
Reads the website: “Newly elected Justice Annette Ziegler has the dubious distinction of being the first sitting Justice on Wisconsin’s State Supreme Court to find herself in the middle of an ethics investigation. She is also likely to be the first Justice to force her own colleagues on the high court to discipline her for her ethical lapses. She is accused of violating SCR Chapter 60, Code of Conduct pursuant to Section 757.81(4)(a) of the (Wisconsin) Statutes.”
Wisconsin citizens elected Ziegler after these conflicts of interests and Ziegler's lies about them on the campaign trail were widely disclosed.
But it’s up to jurists, the Wisconsin Supreme Court, to see that Ziegler, surely a demonstrably corrupt judge to any objective observer, is not allowed to continue serving on the state’s highest court.
Many Wisconsin attorneys expect the Court—declining in the academic quality of its opinions and ascending in it partisanship—to issue a slap on the wrist.
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