The Wisconsin Supreme Court voted not to reappoint attorney John R. Dawson to a second full term on the Wisconsin Judicial Commission, which he chaired. Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson wrote to Dawson in a May letter that the court, “over our objections, has voted not to reappoint you.”

The commission investigated misconduct by judges and justices. The commission had nine members: a court of appeals judge, a circuit court judge, two lawyers and five members of the public. The Supreme Court appointed the judges and lawyers, and the governor appointed the public members with Senate approval, for three-year terms with a two-term limit.

In March, the commission under Dawson found that Justice David Prosser violated the Code of Judicial Conduct in connection with an alleged June 13, 2011, altercation with Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, and recommended that Prosser be disciplined. Prosser issued a statement criticizing the complaint as politically motivated and said the commission was “trying to accomplish through this prosecution what some of its members failed to achieve at the ballot box.”

Dawson said he did not know why the court declined to reappoint him. “I am not privy to the thinking of justices on the court. That’s not my province. I’m sure they had sound reasons,” he said. After the vote, Abrahamson publicly criticized the court’s “conservative majority,” and Justices Prosser and Patience Roggensack disclosed that the chief justice had threatened them and accused them of being “corrupt” during a closed-door meeting.

Wisconsin voters elected Supreme Court justices. Joseph A. Ranney, a trial lawyer who has written several books on legal history, wrote in the December 2011 issue of Wisconsin Lawyer, the State Bar of Wisconsin’s magazine, that recent Supreme Court campaigns had been marked by bitter words and heavy spending by independent interest groups. In July 2011, state Sens. Dale Schultz, R-Richland Center, and Tim Cullen, D-Janesville, introduced a proposal to amend the Wisconsin Constitution to provide for merit selection.

Gavel Grab first reported this story in May 2012, when the site was a project of Justice at Stake. The original post is preserved by the Internet Archive. This account of the same events was written from the public record.

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