Wisconsin Supreme Court
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is the highest and final court of appeals in the state judicial system of the U.S. state of Wisconsin. In addition to hearing appeals of lower Wisconsin court decisions, the Wisconsin Supreme Court also has the option to take original jurisdiction of cases, and serves as a regulator and administrator of judicial conduct and the practice of law in Wisconsin.
Justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court are elected. The two most recent elections received national attention. They both broke records for the most expensive judicial elections in U.S. history.
Location
The Wisconsin Supreme Court normally sits in its main hearing room in the East Wing of the Wisconsin State Capitol building in Madison, Wisconsin. Since 1993, the court has also traveled, once or twice a year, to another part of the state to hear several cases as part of its "Justice on Wheels" program. The purpose of this program is to give the people of Wisconsin a better opportunity to understand the operations of the state supreme court and the court system.Justices
The court is composed of seven justices who are elected in statewide, non-partisan elections. Each justice is elected for a ten-year term. Importantly, only one justice may be elected in any year. This avoids the sudden shifts in jurisprudence commonly seen in other state supreme courts, where the court composition can be radically shifted if two or three justices are simultaneously targeted for an electoral challenge based on their views on controversial issues. In the event of a vacancy on the court, the governor has the power to appoint an individual to the vacancy, but that justice must then stand for election in the first year in which no other justice's term expires.After passage of a state constitutional amendment on April 7, 2015, the chief justice of the court is elected for a term of 2 years by the vote of a majority of the justices then serving on the court, although the justice so elected may decline the appointment. Prior to that amendment, the justice with the longest continuous service on the court served as the chief justice.
While the court is officially nonpartisan, its members are generally regarded as having consistent ideological positions. Justices Crawford, Dallet, Karofsky, and Protasiewicz are frequently described as liberals, while Justices Ziegler, Hagedorn, and Bradley are described as conservatives. Liberal justices and candidates are endorsed and electorally supported by the Democratic Party and related organizations, and conservatives have an equivalent relationship with the Republican Party. Justice Hagedorn was considered the court's "swing justice" prior to Justice Protasiewicz's investiture; while his campaign was supported by Republican organizations and he previously served as chief legal counsel to Republican governor Scott Walker, he has sided with the liberal-leaning justices on some noteworthy cases.
Current justices
| Name | Born | Start | Chief term | Term ends | Law school |
| , Chief Justice | 2025–present | 2030 | Wisconsin | ||
| 2021–2025 | 2027 | Marquette | |||
| – | 2026 | Wisconsin | |||
| – | 2028 | Case Western Reserve | |||
| – | 2029 | Northwestern | |||
| – | 2033 | Marquette | |||
| – | 2035 | Iowa |
Chief justice selection
The members of the court choose their chief justice every two years by majority vote. This method of choosing the chief justice is a recent change, from a 2015 constitutional amendment. The change was controversial at the time, even leading to a federal lawsuit by the outgoing chief justice, Shirley Abrahamson, after the loss of her role to Patience Roggensack.Prior to 2015, the chief justice was simply the longest continually-serving member of the court. This was the method for most of the court's history, since 1889. Prior to 1889, the court's chief justice was a separate seat on the court, elected by the public.
Controversies
Recusal
In 2009, the United States Supreme Court decided Caperton v. A.T. Massey Coal Co., holding 5–4 that a campaign expenditure of over $3 million by a corporate litigant to influence the election of a judge in West Virginia to the court that would hear its case, although legal, was an "extreme fact" that created a "probability of bias", thus requiring the judge to be recused from hearing the case. Wisconsin had adopted a limit of $1,000 for campaign contributions to judges, but it was unclear when mandatory recusal was required. The League of Women Voters petitioned the Court to require a judge to recuse himself or herself from a proceeding if the judge had received any campaign contributions from a party or entity involved in it. Instead, during its 2009–2010 term and by a 4–3 vote, the Court adopted a rule that recusal is not required based solely on any endorsement or receipt of a lawful campaign contribution from a party or entity involved in the proceeding, and that a judge does not need to seek recusal where it would be based solely on a party in the case sponsoring an independent expenditure or issue advocacy communication in favor of the judge. Voting in favor of the new rule were Prosser, Gableman, Roggensack, and Ziegler. Voting against were Abrahamson, Crooks, and A. Bradley. In the opinion of Justice Roggensack, "when a judge is disqualified from participation, the votes of all who voted to elect that judge are cancelled for all issues presented by that case. Accordingly, recusal rules... must be narrowly tailored to meet a compelling state interest." In dissenting, Justice A. Bradley called the decision "a dramatic change to our judicial code of ethics" and took issue with the majority's decision to adopt a rule "proposed by special interest groups."The issue of recusal became a major controversy again after the 2023 judicial election, but with the ideological positions reversed. Conservatives justice Rebecca Bradley and chief justice Annette Ziegler abandoned their previous position, which favored narrow recusal rules, and instead urged a broad recusal standard after Wisconsin elected a liberal majority to the Court in 2023. Their demand was targeted at the newest justice, Janet Protasiewicz, and was paired with a threat from the Republican Assembly speaker to begin an impeachment. At issue was the allegation that Protasiewicz had pre-judged pending redistricting cases, because she had remarked during the campaign that Wisconsin's legislative maps were "rigged". Several complaints were also filed against Protasiewicz with the Wisconsin Judicial Commission, but the commission quickly dismissed those complaints.
Confrontation
On June 13, 2011, a confrontation between Justices David Prosser, Jr. and Ann Walsh Bradley occurred in Bradley's chambers. Prosser, Bradley, and the other justices were discussing the following day's decision that would overturn a ruling blocking the Wisconsin collective bargaining law. Witnesses stated that the incident happened after Prosser had stated that he'd lost all confidence in the leadership of Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson. Bradley later accused Prosser of putting her in a chokehold. Prosser denied the allegations and asked for "a proper review of the matter and the facts surrounding it". The incident was investigated by the Dane County Sheriff's Office. Witnesses to the incident disagreed about what had happened and neither Prosser nor Bradley was charged by a special prosecutor. Ethics charges brought against Prosser based on Bradley's allegations were never adjudicated due to the lack of a quorum on the Court after recusals.2020 primary election amid COVID-19 pandemic
In April 2020, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that Governor Tony Evers could not delay the state's 2020 primary elections, despite public fears of COVID-19.Stay at home order
In May 2020, in response to a lawsuit brought by the Republican-led state legislature, the Court ruled 4–3 to strike down an order issued by Secretary-designate of the Department of Health Services Andrea Palm, which extended the stay-at-home order previously issued by Governor Tony Evers. The portion of the order that kept all K-12 schools closed for the remainder of the school year remained in effect. The deciding vote to strike down the Secretary-designate's order was by Daniel Kelly, who had recently lost his bid for re-election to Jill Karofsky.Redistricting
The Wisconsin Supreme Court plays a role in determining the election maps in Wisconsin. The Court first reviewed maps in the 1890s, when they struck down state legislative maps and set standards for equal representation and district boundaries. This standard remained until federal guidance superseded these standards in the 20th century. The Court later reviewed a case about maps in the 1950s and even drew maps themselves in 1964. After these actions, the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965 and related United States Supreme Court cases deterred the Wisconsin Supreme Court from examining redistricting issues.The Wisconsin Supreme court was prompted to revisit election maps in 2018 after the United States Supreme Court case of Gill v. Whitford reduced federal jurisdiction. In 2022, the Wisconsin Supreme Court took on redistricting again. At first, the Wisconsin Supreme Court allowed the Legislature's maps through the 2022 elections.. But after Jill Karofsky was elected to replace Daniel Kelly, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled against the Legislature in 2023 in Clarke v. Wisconsin Elections Commission. In February 2024, Governor Tony Evers signed new election maps into law, which were used for the 2024 Wisconsin elections.