January 6, 2009

Gableman legislates from the bench

This morning the Wisconsin Supreme Court renumbered, rewrote, and fabricated from whole cloth several entirely new provisions to Wis. Stat. § 809.23, a rule of appellate procedure governing the precedential value of unpublished decisions of the courts of appeal.

Jefferson County Judge Randy R. Koschnick, the latest aspirant to the State's highest court, turned up Saturday at a gun show in La Crosse, where he repeated the claim that "Judges are like umpires, they just call balls and strikes. They don't make laws, they apply them."*

Justice Gableman had also pledged not to "legislate from the bench."

* What then-D.C. appellate judge Roberts actually said was, "Judges are like umpires. Umpires don’t make the rules, they apply them."

h/t Terrence Berres.

1 comment:

Brett said...

A lot of folks could have claims for promissory estoppel. Of course, who could have reasonably relied on the fact that judges don't make rules?