Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser — part of the conservative majority that approved the legality of governor Scott Walker’s union-busting legislation — is alleged to have choked his colleague Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, a liberal. Prosser also called another colleague, Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, “a total bitch” and threatened to destroy her. He justified this by blaming Abrahamson: “They (Abrahamson and Justice Ann Walsh Bradley) are masters at deliberately goading people into perhaps incautious statements. This is bullying and abuse of very, very long standing.”
Meanwhile, an unnamed source who is on Prosser’s side of the argument accused Bradley of initiating the violence. “She charged him with fists raised,” the source told the paper, saying that Prosser “put his hands in a defensive posture” to block her, and made contact with her neck. Bradley is then said to have immediately complained of being choked, while another, unnamed Justice responded, “You were not choked.”
In response, Bradley told the paper: “You can try to spin those facts and try to make it sound like I ran up to him and threw my neck into his hands, but that’s only spin.
“Matters of abusive behavior in the workplace aren’t resolved by competing press releases. I’m confident the appropriate authorities will conduct a thorough investigation of this incident involving abusive behavior in the workplace.”
I think it was pretty chickenshit of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel to allow its source who claimed that Walsh lied about being choked to be anonymous — anonymous character assassination isn’t news, it’s just gossip.
Meanwhile, I don’t expect that Justice Prosser would be sympathetic to “she was asking for it,” as a defense from an accused before his bench.
(via Reddit)