{"id":242,"date":"2018-03-16T21:22:07","date_gmt":"2018-03-16T21:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/wisconsin\/work\/fair-courts\/"},"modified":"2025-07-03T08:35:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T13:35:16","slug":"fair-courts","status":"publish","type":"work","link":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/wisconsin\/work\/fair-courts\/","title":{"rendered":"Fair Courts"},"template":"","class_list":["post-242","work","type-work","status-publish","hentry","work_type-campaign"],"acf":{"details":{"summary":"We're educating Wisconsinites about our state's lack of effective judicial recusal rules, and pushing for stronger recusal standards to ensure impartial justice in Wisconsin courts.","featured_image":14389,"work_type":173,"related_issues":[103,408],"location":64},"sidebar":{"helper_enable_sidebar":true,"helper_media_contact":{"heading":"Media Contact","manually_enter_person":false,"person":"","name":"","role":"","phone":"","email":""},"helper_links_downloads":{"heading":"Links to more information","links":[{"file_download":false,"link":{"title":"VIDEOS: Judicial Recusal in Wisconsin","url":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/wisconsin\/articles\/videos-judicial-recusal-in-wisconsin\/","target":""},"file":null},{"file_download":false,"link":{"title":"Background and History of Judicial Recusal in Wisconsin","url":"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/wisconsin\/work\/background-and-history-of-judicial-recusal-in-wisconsin\/","target":""},"file":null}]}},"page_layout":[{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_pull_quote","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_pull_quote":{"quote":"\"This issue is about fairness, it\u2019s about transparency, and it's about people having faith in our court system... to me it\u2019s a no-brainer.\"","attribution":"- Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Janine Geske"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_wysiwyg":{"content":"<h2>Equal access to justice for all<\/h2>\r\nThe idea that \u201ceveryone deserves their day in court\u201d is both central and essential to our democracy \u2013 and is exactly why we are educating Wisconsinites about the need for strong recusal rules for our state\u2019s judges and justices.\r\n\r\nCurrently, no rule has been established in Wisconsin requiring a member of our state judiciary to step aside (or \u201crecuse\u201d themselves) if they received a large campaign donation or benefited financially from a party in a case before their court.\r\n\r\n<strong>In fact, Wisconsin\u2019s judges and justices are allowed to\u00a0<i>decide for themselves<\/i>\u00a0when they should recuse from a case.<\/strong> And this current rule was actually written by a partisan, deep-pocketed special interest group, Wisconsin Manufacturers &amp; Commerce, and adopted\u00a0<i>verbatim<\/i>\u00a0by the then-conservative majority on the court in 2009.\r\n\r\nFurther, there is no requirement that Wisconsin judges inform individuals involved in a case in their court that a bias might exist.\r\n\r\nThis potential for even the appearance of bias in our courts corrodes the very essence of \u201cjustice for all.\u201d\r\n\r\n<strong>Strong recusal rules would repair and strengthen public confidence in Wisconsin\u2019s judiciary by ensuring equal access to justice in our state courts.<\/strong>"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_pull_quote","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_pull_quote":{"quote":"\"Nobody cares about a judge until they're standing in front of one \u2013 and then they care very much about a judge.\"","attribution":"- Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Louis Butler"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_wysiwyg":{"content":"In January 2017, 54 retired jurists from all over Wisconsin \u2013 including two former State Supreme Court Justices \u2013 petitioned the Wisconsin Supreme Court to adopt strong and clear recusal rules for Justices and Judges at all levels with specific thresholds that would trigger mandatory recusal from cases. Wisconsin was found to have the fourth weakest judicial recusal rules in the nation and these retired jurists sounded the alarm.\u00a0 Common Cause Wisconsin strongly supported this petition and submitted strong testimony to the Justices.\r\n\r\nAnd yet, five justices voted against conducting any public hearings on the petition. The two other justices voted to conduct them.\r\n\r\nSimilarly, on April 20, 2017, by the same vote, the Supreme Court rejected the petition of the retired jurists and kept the current policy of self-recusal in place.\r\n\r\n<strong>Since then, Common Cause in Wisconsin and the retired judges have worked to revive the issue of judicial recusal in Wisconsin that had been seemingly buried with the Supreme Court\u2019s action of April 20, 2017.<\/strong>\r\n\r\nIn October 2017, we held three public hearings on the issue \u2013 in Green Bay, Milwaukee, and Madison \u2013 and continues our outreach and educational efforts in 2018, 2019 and 2020 elsewhere in the state including in La Crosse and Wausau.\r\n\r\nAnd, finally in 2023, we have a progressive Wisconsin Supreme Court majority that has signaled it is open to revisiting the judicial recusal issue and in working toward regaining public confidence in the impartiality of the state's highest court and for courts at all levels.\r\n\r\nThe fairness and impartiality of our judges depends mightily on their separation from the effect and influence of campaign contributors and outside, special interest campaign spending groups.\r\n\r\nYou can advance this needed reform in Wisconsin by insisting that the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and judges at all levels support stronger recusal rules.\r\n\r\n<strong>Wisconsinites deserve free and equal access to justice and an impartial court system.<\/strong>"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_wysiwyg","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_wysiwyg":{"content":"<a class=\"button1\" role=\"button\" href=\"https:\/\/www.commoncause.org\/wisconsin\/updates\/\">Read the Latest in Wisconsin<\/a>"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_add_component","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_add_component":null},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_take_action","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_take_action":{"heading":"","button_text":"","manually_curate":false,"action":null}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_banner","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_banner":{"use_donate_banner":true,"title":"Title [highlight]with highlighting[\/highlight] and additional text.","button":null,"image":null}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_related_articles","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_related_articles":{"heading":"Updates","button_text":"See all Related Articles","manually_curate":false,"articles":null}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_resources","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_resources":{"heading":"Related Resources","button_text":"See all Related Resources","manually_curate":false,"resource":null}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_press","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_press":{"heading":"","button_text":"","manually_curate":false,"press":null}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_events","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_events":{"heading":"Events"}},{"acf_fc_layout":"layout_our_experts","_acfe_flexible_toggle":"","component_our_experts":{"heading":"","manually_curate":false,"people":null}}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.6 (Yoast SEO v27.1.1) - 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