Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Reprimanded by Colleagues
A Wisconsin Supreme Court justice has received a reprimand from her colleagues for presiding over cases on a trial court involving a bank where her husband served as a paid director.
The court said Justice Annette Ziegler should have recused herself in the 11 cases involving the bank, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports. Ziegler’s husband earned $20,000 a year as a bank director. Most of the cases involved small claims by the financial institution to recover unpaid debts.
Some of the cases allowed the bank to repossess vehicles or to foreclose on property owned by customers in default, the Capital Times reports. One case involved a $46,000 debt.
“The record demonstrates that Judge Ziegler was a hardworking, diligent, and highly regarded circuit court judge,” said the opinion (PDF posted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) released yesterday. “The judge’s conduct at issue here is, however, troubling.”
“Nevertheless, we are confident that Judge Ziegler can and will perform creditable service as a member of this court,” the court added.
Ziegler issued a statement saying she is pleased the court “confirmed that the mistake I made was inadvertent, that neither myself nor anyone in my family benefited financially from my participation in the cases, and the cases were decided as they would have been decided by any other judge.”
Since joining the state supreme court, Ziegler advises parties when she has received campaign donations from people connected to the cases. Most other justices don’t do the same.
Janine Geske, a former justice who is a professor at Marquette law school, told the Journal Sentinel that the opinion sends a message. “I suspect there isn’t a judge in the state that isn’t going to closely look at that opinion and reflect and make sure there aren’t inadvertent things happening in their courts,” she said.
Mike McCabe, executive director of the judicial watchdog group that filed a complaint about Ziegler’s conduct, told the Associated Press that the opinion “will be seen by the public as nothing more than a slap on the wrist.”
