Koschnick’s reversals

I want to talk a little about Randy Koschnick, the conservative candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. However, before I do I want to encourage you to go and read Xoff over at Uppity Wisconsin and the illustrious illyT, because they’ve done a great job of exposing all Judge Randy Koschnick’s warts as a Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate.

Given how negative the last Wisconsin Supreme Court race was, thanks in large part to Michael Gableman, it should come as no surprise that Judge Koschnick has resorted to the same kinds of attacks on Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson that Justice Gableman used against Louis Butler, including cherry picking a few of Chief Justice Abrahamson’s decision that Judge Koschnick feels will suit his needs. At a candidate forum yesterday in Green Bay, Judge Koschnick saw fit to attempt to paint Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson as a “judicial activist” – no doubt code for “liberal judicial activist” – and in doing so, Judge Koschnick cited a few of Chief Justice Abrahamson’s decisions in an attempt to use them to portray her as some kind of radical jurist who uses the bench to create law where none exists. As illyT points out, what Judge Koschnick seemed ill prepared for was an attack on his own trial court decisions that had been overturned on appeal:

In one of them, a unanimous court of appeals (including Patience Roggensack, herself now a “conservative” member of the Supreme Court) determined that Koschnick had “exceeded [his] authority” and that Koschnick’s ruling was “directly contradictory” to the plain language of the Wisconsin administrative code (and not only the plain language, but the explicit definition of words and phrases contained in the code).

After several discomforting moments of complete speechlessness, Koschnick brushed his reversals aside by alleging that they involved “close questions” upon which “reasonable people can disagree.”

My favorite Koschnick decision that was overturned on appeal would have to be County of Jefferson v. Demler, in which Judge Koshnick managed to get reversed in presiding over a traffic citation:

In County of Jefferson v. Demler, Judge Koschnick determined that the County’s failure to subpoena a witness was excusable neglect. Now, the standard for excusable neglect is well-known and long established. But Koschnick gave the County a free pass, without explanation, when the County was negligent in failing to subpoena a witness. (If you’re a judicial conservative, you don’t make the law up, you follow the gosh darn standard.)

In finding that Koschnick erred, the Court of Appeals noted that Koschnick failed to provide any legal basis for his decision. The Court of Appeals then held:

Therefore, we conclude that the trial court erroneously exercised its discretion because it applied the wrong legal standard.

Needless to say, the traffic citations were dismissed. Perhaps Judge Koschnick should spend a little more time in traffic court before he vies for a spot on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, because any judge who has a traffic court decision overturned on appeal simply isn’t ready for prime time.