MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The conservative chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court docket accused her liberal colleagues of a “uncooked train of overreaching energy” after they flexed their new majority Wednesday and fired the director of the state’s courtroom system.
The 4 liberal justices, on simply their second day as a majority on the courtroom after 15 years beneath conservative management, voted to fireplace Randy Koschnick. Koschnick held the job for six years after serving for 18 years as a choose and working unsuccessfully as a conservative in 2009 towards then-Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, a liberal.
“To say that I’m disenchanted in my colleagues is an understatement,” Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, now a member of the three-justice conservative minority, stated in a prolonged assertion after Koschnick was fired.
Ziegler stated the transfer undermined her authority as chief justice. She referred to as it unauthorized, procedurally and legally flawed, and reckless. However she stated she wouldn’t try and cease it out of worry that different courtroom staff might be equally fired.
“My colleagues’ unprecedented harmful conduct is the uncooked train of overreaching energy,” she stated. “It’s shameful. I worry that is solely the start.”
Fellow conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley blasted the transfer in a social media put up, saying, “Political purges of courtroom staff are past the pale.”
Koschnick referred to as the transfer “apparently political.”
“I feel that portends unhealthy issues for the courtroom’s determination making going ahead,” he stated.
The courtroom introduced Wednesday night that Milwaukee County Circuit Court docket Choose Audrey Skwierawski will function the interim director of state courts starting Thursday. Skwierawski will take a depart from her place on the circuit courtroom, the place she has served since her appointment by former Gov. Scott Walker in 2018, it stated.
The justices who voted to fireplace Koschnick didn’t reply to a request for remark left with the courtroom’s spokesperson.
Ziegler famous that when conservatives took management of the courtroom in 2008, they didn’t act to fireplace the director of state courts at the moment, John Voelker. He remained within the place for six extra years earlier than resigning.
Ziegler praised Koschnick for his 18 years as a choose and his efforts as director of the state courtroom system, a job that features hiring courtroom personnel and sustaining the statewide pc system for courts. She additionally applauded him for addressing the psychological well being wants of individuals within the courtroom system, tackling a courtroom reporter scarcity and protecting courts working through the COVID-19 pandemic.
Koschnick stated he may have accepted his firing — and ensured a smoother transition along with his successor — if the justices had waited to do it at a deliberate administrative assembly subsequent month. As an alternative, he stated, courtroom staff are boxing up his private belongings whereas he’s in New York at a judicial convention.
“It creates a extremely unstable office,” he stated.