{"id":10423,"date":"2010-06-11T09:26:05","date_gmt":"2010-06-11T14:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=10423"},"modified":"2010-06-11T09:26:05","modified_gmt":"2010-06-11T14:26:05","slug":"whats-good-for-the-goose","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2010\/06\/whats-good-for-the-goose\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s Good for the Goose . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued its decision in In Re Sherwin-Williams Co<\/em><\/a>. The court upheld Judge Lynn Adelman\u2019s decision not to recuse himself from a case pending before him in the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Burton v. American Cyandamid, et al<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Sherwin-Williams is currently before Adelman as a defendant in a personal injury action involving lead paint, heard in diversity jurisdiction. S-W believed \u201chis impartiality might reasonably be questioned\u201d (the relevant legal standard) because he had written an article defending the Wisconsin Supreme Court\u2019s controversial lead paint decision in Thomas v. Mallett<\/em>, 2005 WI 129<\/a>.\u00a0 (The article is Adelman & Fite, Exercising Judicial Power: A Response to the Wisconsin Supreme Court\u2019s Critics<\/em>, 91 Marq. L. Rev. 425 (2007))<\/a>. In the article, Adelman defended the Court\u2019s 04-05 term generally and praised Thomas<\/em> particularly as a \u201cpositive development\u201d which ensured that \u201cthe doors of the courthouse remain open.\u201d Id<\/em>. at 446.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Based on this characterization, S-W sought his recusal in this case.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

Judge Adelman rejected the motion<\/a>, stating that \u201cthe fact that a judge has expressed views on a legal subject is not a ground for disqualification.\u201d (Burton Order at 6.) He quoted a Ninth Circuit decision stating that a \u201cjudge\u2019s view on legal issues may not serve as the basis for a motion to disqualify.\u201d Id<\/em>. The Seventh Circuit panel, in a per curiam opinion, upheld his decision.<\/p>\n

The panel said that S-W argued that \u201ca reasonable person would suspect that Judge Adelman has an unusual interest in assisting [lead paint] plaintiffs\u00a0— i.e., that he has an ax to grind” (7). The Court dismissed this argument, saying that \u201cjudges may speak, write, and participate in other activities concerning the legal issues of the day\u201d (Id<\/em>.).<\/p>\n

This discussion is interesting when juxtaposed next to the murky matter of State v. Allen<\/em><\/a>, pending in the Wisconsin Supreme Court (2007AP000795). Counsel for Allen contended that Justice Michael Gableman must recuse himself<\/a> from that criminal case, and by implication all criminal cases, because a reasonable person would suspect that Justice Gableman has an unusual interest in assisting law enforcement, an ax to grind against criminal defendants.<\/p>\n

This is based on various statements he made during the 2008 campaign when he publicly criticized the court\u2019s decisions, particularly from the 2004-05 term. A number of \u201cAllen motions\u201d were filed in other cases<\/a>, urged on by the State Public Defender\u2019s Office.<\/p>\n

Just as Judge Adelman should not recuse himself from all lead paint cases because he publicly defended the court\u2019s 04-05 lead paint case, so Justice Gableman should not recuse himself from all criminal cases because he publicly criticized the court\u2019s 04-05 criminal cases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Earlier this week, a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued its decision in In Re Sherwin-Williams Co. The court upheld Judge Lynn Adelman\u2019s decision not to recuse himself from a case pending before him in the Eastern District of Wisconsin, Burton v. American Cyandamid, et al.\u00a0 Sherwin-Williams is currently […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ocean_post_layout":"","ocean_both_sidebars_style":"","ocean_both_sidebars_content_width":0,"ocean_both_sidebars_sidebars_width":0,"ocean_sidebar":"","ocean_second_sidebar":"","ocean_disable_margins":"enable","ocean_add_body_class":"","ocean_shortcode_before_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_after_top_bar":"","ocean_shortcode_before_header":"","ocean_shortcode_after_header":"","ocean_has_shortcode":"","ocean_shortcode_after_title":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_widgets":"","ocean_shortcode_before_footer_bottom":"","ocean_shortcode_after_footer_bottom":"","ocean_display_top_bar":"default","ocean_display_header":"default","ocean_header_style":"","ocean_center_header_left_menu":"","ocean_custom_header_template":"","ocean_custom_logo":0,"ocean_custom_retina_logo":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_width":0,"ocean_custom_logo_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_tablet_max_height":0,"ocean_custom_logo_mobile_max_height":0,"ocean_header_custom_menu":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_family":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_subset":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_size":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_font_size_unit":"px","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_font_weight_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_tablet":"","ocean_menu_typo_transform_mobile":"","ocean_menu_typo_line_height":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_line_height_unit":"","ocean_menu_typo_spacing":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_tablet":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_mobile":0,"ocean_menu_typo_spacing_unit":"","ocean_menu_link_color":"","ocean_menu_link_color_hover":"","ocean_menu_link_color_active":"","ocean_menu_link_background":"","ocean_menu_link_hover_background":"","ocean_menu_link_active_background":"","ocean_menu_social_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_bg":"","ocean_menu_social_links_color":"","ocean_menu_social_hover_links_color":"","ocean_disable_title":"default","ocean_disable_heading":"default","ocean_post_title":"","ocean_post_subheading":"","ocean_post_title_style":"","ocean_post_title_background_color":"","ocean_post_title_background":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_image_position":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_attachment":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_repeat":"","ocean_post_title_bg_image_size":"","ocean_post_title_height":0,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay":0.5,"ocean_post_title_bg_overlay_color":"","ocean_disable_breadcrumbs":"default","ocean_breadcrumbs_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_separator_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_color":"","ocean_breadcrumbs_links_hover_color":"","ocean_display_footer_widgets":"default","ocean_display_footer_bottom":"default","ocean_custom_footer_template":"","ocean_post_oembed":"","ocean_post_self_hosted_media":"","ocean_post_video_embed":"","ocean_link_format":"","ocean_link_format_target":"self","ocean_quote_format":"","ocean_quote_format_link":"post","ocean_gallery_link_images":"on","ocean_gallery_id":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,54,68,23,14,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-eastern-district-of-wisconsin","category-federal-civil-litigation","category-judges-judicial-process","category-seventh-circuit","category-criminal-law","category-wisconsin-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/37"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10423\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}