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Ziegler reprimand – too little or too much?

By: dmc-admin//June 2, 2008//

Ziegler reprimand – too little or too much?

By: dmc-admin//June 2, 2008//

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On May 28, the Wisconsin Supreme Court disciplined one of its own. The justices determined that Justice Annette Kingsland Ziegler should be publicly reprimanded for presiding over 11 cases involving a bank where her husband sat on the board of directors while she was a circuit court judge.

Justice Louis B. Butler Jr. dissented from the majority decision.

The decision shows the justices walking a fine line. On one hand, they point to the serious nature of the offense and its negative effect on how the public perceives the judiciary. On the other hand, they chose the lowest level of discipline – the one recommended by the Judicial Council, an appellate judicial review panel and Ziegler herself.

In the end, the public, the bar and the judiciary will probably walk away from this decision equally divided as to whether the final discipline was appropriate or not. In their decision, the justices even seemed to anticipate this outcome.

The per curiam decision states, “Some may believe that the sanction imposed today is too severe. Judge Ziegler herself, together with the Judicial Conduct Panel and the Judicial Commission, recommended a public reprimand. Others may believe the sanction imposed today is too lenient. The misconduct is, however, both serious and significant. And a sanction of a public reprimand is both serious and significant. Never before in the history of the Wisconsin Supreme Court has a sitting justice received a public disciplinary sanction from the members of the [c]ourt.”

Are they correct? How serious was the infraction? Is this a “serious and significant” discipline?

The justices identified a number of mitigating factors including the fact that “Judge Ziegler was a fine circuit court judge and an active member of the judiciary contributing to the administration of the judicial system.”

They also noted that:

Ziegler has not been the subject of prior discipline,

she has served the court system in a variety of capacities including as a member of the Judicial College,

the review panel determined that another judge would have decided those 11 cases the same way,

none of the litigants sought to reopen the cases, and

neither Ziegler nor her husband benefited from the decisions.

However, in the decision, the justices also noted, “The harm caused by a violation of this Code provision exists even though the judge reaches the correct decision in the particular case and the judge does not receive any personal benefit from the decision in the case.” Ziegler’s colleagues acknowledged that those actions reflect poorly on the judicial system.

“After careful consideration of the mitigating and aggravating circumstances, we conclude that Judge Ziegler's failure to recuse herself from these 11 cases or obtain a waiver diminishes public confidence in the legal system,” the court wrote.

At one point the justices questioned the absence of a record indicating whether Ziegler had publicly admitted to violating the rule prior to her 2007 election to the high court. Butler raised that lack of an evidentiary record in his dissent.

He wrote: I respectfully cannot sign onto a decision lacking the type of evidentiary basis that we would consider a foundational requisite in any other case before us."

In the end, people will have to decide whether the Supreme Court’s public reprimand restores public confidence.

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