But signs of a debate philosophical fort in the Court has reached a different level with a report published Saturday, suggesting that the argument had, shortly before the release of the decision on collective bargaining, turned physical.
The report by Wisconsin Center for investigation and Radio journalism public Wisconsin describes an episode in which three anonymous sources stated that Justice David t. Prosser had caught another judge, Ann Walsh Bradley, around the neck during an argument in its rooms this month.
Late Saturday, a separate report from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel describes a physical meeting in which two sources offered conflicting accounts of what happened, including one in which Justice Bradley was supposed to have billed the Justice Prosser.
"Once there is a good review of this case and the facts surrounding it are clear, the anonymous media claim proven false," Justice Prosser said in a statement, it comes out late Saturday. "" "". Until then, I refrain from further public consultation. »
Justice Bradley could not be reached for comment, and officials of the judicial Commission of Wisconsin, which monitors the judicial conduct and standards, did not return calls. The head of the Wisconsin Capitol Police refused to comment for the moment.
Already, however, the report has been restless new divisions in a State that has, for months, been locked in a battle between Republicans and Democrats and between supporters of the union and those who consider the reductions to collective bargaining as the only way to save the State budget.
Justice Prosser critics were expressing outrage face and called for investigations on the relations between the members of the Court. While most State judges of the Supreme Court are known only slightly beyond the legal world, Justice Prosser became well known to most Wisconsinites this year in his bid for re-election - usually a matter of routine, boring - turned into a referendum on the fight which was already playing in Madison public workers and trade union rights.
Justice Prosser, a former Republican leader of the Assembly of the State, was accused by supporters of Union to be a vote ensure that measures anti-Union and other efforts by the legislature dominated by the Republicans and the new Governor, Scott Walker, a Republican. Justice Prosser said that he had paid his partisan tendencies in more than a decade on the Supreme Court of the State and could not be grouped as the decisive conservative vote in what many have come to be regarded as a split of the Liberal-Conservative 4 - to-3.
Justice Prosser is closely re-elected in April. And by this month, the Court heard the arguments may be the most polarizing case of all: If bill of Governor Walker to cut the negotiation of the rights and benefits for public workers had been adopted legally. A lower court found that Republican lawmakers has violated the provisions of the State's open-meetings, but on 14 June, the Supreme Court decided to reinstate. The vote: 4-3, the Liberal-Conservative lines that many expected.
Justice Prosser has the majority, who cites the importance of the separation of powers and said that the State legislature had not violated the Constitution of the State when he relied on his interpretation of its rules and gave a little less than two hours notice prior to the meeting and to vote for reductions of collective bargaining rights. Justice Bradley was among dissidents, a group that included Chief Justice Shirley s. Abrahamson.
In dissent, Chief Justice written criticized Abrahamson of Justice Prosser in the matter, saying: "It is long on rhetoric and the narration which seems to have a partisan slope long."
In his re-election campaign, Justice Prosser acknowledged an earlier verbal run-in with the Chief Justice Abrahamson in which he had, he said, called him a "total whore". In an interview with the New York Times, he explained his comments: "I said something, I shouldn't have said?" Of course. I regret it? Of course. I apologize for it? Yes, I do. »
But in the interview, Justice Prosser also described great strain on the Court. At least one of the judges had been recruiting candidates to run against him, said Justice Prosser.
"All these things came to a head", he said. "The members of the Court have been very, very deeply divided."
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