In the race for a full 10-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Rebecca Bradley is using her five months on the state’s highest court as a big asset.
But just how much judicial experience does Bradley really have?
Not much at all. But her votes so far should concern anyone who cares about fair and impartial justice.
Although she’s taken just a few votes as a state Supreme Court justice, she’s set herself apart by ignoring precedent about when a new justice can join a case so that she could trample on the Constitution and give the police broad new powers to dig through your home—without a search warrant.
Bradley’s rise to power on the state Supreme Court was highly unusual. Republican Gov. Scott Walker appointed her to an unheard-of three positions in three years—to the Milwaukee County Circuit Court in December 2012, the Wisconsin Appeals Court in May 2015 and state Supreme Court in October 2015, to fill out Justice Patrick Crooks’ term after his death in September.
Bradley is running against state Appeals Court Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg for a full 10-year term on the bench to begin in July. The election will be held on Tuesday, April 5.
Bradley hasn’t done much on the state Supreme Court in the few months she’s been on the bench. She’s recused herself from cases that were heard and decided before she joined the court in October.
Until recently. And it’s a doozy.
Bradley, unlike every Wisconsin Supreme Court justice who served before her, joined an opinion on a case that had held its oral arguments and was tentatively decided before she was on the Supreme Court, back when Crooks was still on the bench.
She offered no explanation as to why she joined this case but not the others that were also heard and tentatively decided when Crooks still served on the court.
If you think this is not a big deal, think again.
Bradley’s vote broke a 3-3 tie among the justices. Her vote gave the right-wing majority the fourth vote it needed to make sweeping changes to our understanding of reasonable searches and seizures. We don’t know where Crooks stood in the tentative decision formed before his death in September.
|
|
Thanks to her disputed tie-breaking vote, Bradley is now responsible for gutting our understanding of the Fourth Amendment and giving law enforcement broad new tools to use against you.
According to Bradley and the right-wing majority, police can enter your home without a search warrant and, expanding the “community caretaker” doctrine, can seize evidence against you from locked rooms in your house, even if there’s no reason for them to suspect that there’s an emergency situation that requires a search. That’s right—the police don’t need a search warrant to dig through your home and find evidence to use against you.
The right-wing majority’s opinion is so extreme that Justice David Prosser, who typically sides with them, dissented, writing, “Allowing law enforcement officers to conduct warrantless searches based on a mere theory of community need—and without making a showing of probable cause or even reasonable suspicion—completely undermines the Fourth Amendment’s warrant requirement.”
Justices Shirley Abrahamson and Ann Walsh Bradley joined in Prosser’s dissent, with Abrahamson writing separately about Bradley’s dubious participation in the case.
After an exhaustive search of the records, Abrahamson concluded, “No precedent appears to exist in the United States Supreme Court or in this court for a new justice who did not participate in oral argument to participate in the case without reargument.”
Justice Annette Ziegler wrote the opinion with Michael Gableman, Chief Justice Patience Roggensack and Bradley concurring.
Bradley’s thin record on the bench also includes three votes to stymie reviews of the state’s ethical standards for judges and justices, reviews that were years in the works. These reviews are absolutely necessary, since in the past few years the Wisconsin Supreme Court adopted new standards that are so lax that judges and justices can sit on cases involving big campaign donors, opening the way to corruption on the bench.
Bradley has been more forthcoming on the campaign trail than on the court. Last week, she was caught pledging to the right-wing big business group Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC), “I am your public servant.”
Bradley’s alliance with Walker, the WMC and the Republican Party—who helped her gather signatures for her campaign—are deeply troubling and outrageous. There’s no way that she will be fair and impartial on the bench when she owes her entire career to Walker and his allies, who have propped her up at every turn.
Rebecca Bradley is a very special justice indeed—just not in a good way.
