January 27, 2009

Gableman's first opinion due this week?

Not including those in per curiam attorney discipline cases, the Wisconsin Supreme Court has issued seven written decisions (comprising nine opinions) since Michael Gableman assumed its far-right chair* at the beginning of August.

Chief Justice Abrahamson has written three, Justices Crooks and Bradley two each, and Justices Roggensack and Ziegler one apiece.

The court has one decision set for release tomorrow and two more scheduled for Thursday. Watch this space. Or this one.

* From the public gallery's perspective, of course.

2 comments:

Display Name said...

And no wide-lined paper and fat pencil jokes from the peanut gallery.

Anonymous said...

I'm sure if it's anything like Roggensack's first effort at a draft opinion, whatever Gableman circulated was crap and had to be re-written about eight times.

The Chief is famously efficient in producing opinions, Bradley next, then Crooks. Prosser won't have a released opinion until May, at the earliest, even though he has most certainly already been assigned at least three majority opinions. Roggensack, for all her campaign chatter about wanting the court to handle more cases, can barely keep up with the work the court normally takes.

Gableman is simply an intellectual lightweight, so the idea that he can write a convincing opinion without significant substantive and editorial help from the other justices is just wishful thinking. He'll have the mean-spiritedness of Prosser, the intellectual weight of Roggensack or Zeigler, and a special helping of condescending that only comes from knowing he got one over on the voters of this state. An awful and dangerous combination that will diminish the court and harm the state for decades to come.