Wisconsin Supreme Court – Page 14 – Marquette University Law School Faculty Blog

Has Wisconsin Produced Any Great Judges?

Post author:Joseph A. Ranney
Post published:February 10, 2015
Post category:Judges & Judicial Process Legal History Public Wisconsin Supreme Court

As announced this past summer, Joseph A. Ranney is serving as Marquette Law School’s Schoone Visiting Fellow in Wisconsin Law and using the occasion to write a book examining the role states have played in the evolution of American law, with a focus on the contributions made by Wisconsin. In a series of blog posts this semester, Professor Ranney will offer some Schoone Fellowship Field Notes. This is the first.

What makes a great judge? Who are the great state judges? Thousands of judges have helped build the edifice that is American state law. Only a few have received great acclaim. What are the elements of judicial greatness, and has Wisconsin produced any great judges? Let me consider the matter, excluding any current or recent judges.

Single Sixteen-Year Terms Would Build Confidence in State Supreme Court, Task Force Members Say

Post author:Alan J. Borsuk
Post published:November 27, 2013
Post category:Election Law Public Speakers at Marquette Wisconsin Supreme Court

The idea of the judiciary as independent guardians of the rule of law has taken a beating in Wisconsin in recent years, amid highly contentious state Supreme Court races and the widely publicized divisions within the state Supreme Court.

What plan with a realistic chance of being enacted could help restore respect for the judicial branch of state government as separate from politics?

That premise and that question shaped the work of a four-member task force of the State Bar of Wisconsin, and what the task force recommended recently is a plan that would be unique in the nation: Election of state Supreme Court justices to 16-year terms, without any opportunity to run for reelection.

The four members of the task force described how they settled on that proposal in a recent “On the Issues with Mike Gousha” program at Eckstein Hall.

Enforcing Surrogacy Agreements in Wisconsin

Post author:Lisa A. Mazzie
Post published:July 28, 2013
Post category:Family Law Public Wisconsin Supreme Court

Let’s say you are part of a married couple in Wisconsin. Due to a leukemia diagnosis and treatment for that disease, your eggs are no longer viable. Doctors agree that you are currently in good health and the disease is “a nonissue,” but your husband and you want children and you cannot bear them. A friend has offered to help you out. This woman has been your friend since grade school; you’ve each participated in the other’s wedding. You and your husband are godparents to her youngest daughter. Your friend and her husband have five children of their own and have said they are done expanding their family. Her husband even had a vasectomy. Twice in four years she has offered to carry and bear a child for you. Finally, you agree.

You and your husband visit a lawyer, and your friend and her husband visit a different lawyer. The gist of the arrangement is that your friend will be artificially inseminated with your husband’s sperm. She will carry and bear the child, but she agrees that you and your husband alone would raise the child and she agrees to terminate her parental rights to allow you to adopt the child. She would still be able to see the child; after all, you have long been friends and you plan to continue to see each other through social visits. You’re a bit concerned, though, that your friend may have difficulty giving up a child to whom she has biological ties, but she assures you she can do it. Your lawyers create numerous drafts of your agreement and each revises these drafts until finally all of you agree that what is written accurately reflects your understanding of the arrangement. You all sign this agreement in November. By this time, your friend is already almost five months’ pregnant. She is due the following March.

After all of you sign the agreement, your relationship with your friend crumbles, and before the child is born your friend informs you that she will no longer terminate her parental rights to the child, as she had agreed. Furthermore, she wants to have custody of the child. In March, she gives birth to the baby.

Now what?