Wisconsin Supreme Court Reprimands One of Its Own

The Wisconsin Supreme Court reprimanded Justice Annette Ziegler, who recently joined the Court, for conflicts of interest in cases that she handled as a circuit judge. Ziegler committed obvious judicial ethics violations in hearing cases involving a bank on which her husband was a director. Legal and ethics experts have decried the decision as insufficient — arguing that Wisconsin judges use a double standard for their own misdeeds and that lawyers are treated more harshly in such sentences.

Ziegler was recently elected to the Court in a push by business groups to replace the once liberal leaning Court with conservatives. With this decision, she will be allowed to continue as a member of the Court for the full ten-year term despite the finding of her colleagues that the unethical conduct was obvious: “Given her knowledge of her husband’s relationships with the bank, red flags of danger were prominently flying.”

Her husband a paid director of West Bend Savings Bank, which was involved in the cases. It is hard to imagine how a judge could sit through such cases without realizing that there is something terribly wrong. Yet, the Court said that she did not directly benefit financially from the cases — a bit of a spin given the fact that the case benefited the bank and paid her husband.

For the full story, click here.