{"id":9433,"date":"2010-03-19T21:40:27","date_gmt":"2010-03-20T02:40:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/?p=9433"},"modified":"2010-03-19T21:40:27","modified_gmt":"2010-03-20T02:40:27","slug":"judging-fridays-scowis-decisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/2010\/03\/judging-fridays-scowis-decisions\/","title":{"rendered":"Judging Friday’s SCOWIS Decisions"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Friday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court released two opinions that reflect the court\u2019s new jurisprudential direction. Allow me to focus on the opinion with a much greater discussion of jurisprudence. (The other is State v. Wood<\/em><\/a>, a due process challenge to forced administration of medication in a state-administered facility to a person who had been found not guilty of a crime by reason of mental disease or defect.)<\/p>\n

In State v. Smith<\/em><\/a>, the Supreme Court upheld the state\u2019s sex offender registration law for crimes which, in the particular instance, did not have an obvious sexual component. Smith had been convicted of false imprisonment of a minor, which is one of the crimes leading to sex offender registration. Smith brought as-applied equal protection and substantive due process challenges because his act of false imprisonment had no sexual motive or activity.\u00a0 <\/p>\n

The majority opinion, written by Justice Ziegler (Law \u201889) and joined by Justices Crooks, Prosser, Roggensack, and Gableman, held that the unambiguous text of the law required Smith’s registration, and that the Legislature had a rational basis for making this so. In reaching this conclusion, the majority relied on two core principles of judicial restraint, summed up in one excellent sentence: \u201cWe must afford deference to the words chosen by the legislature . . . .\u201d (\u00b6 25). The mutually reinforcing principles of deference and textualism are the watchwords of this decision and the majority behind it.<\/p>\n

Justice Ziegler reiterated that \u201ca party challenging a statute\u2019s constitutionality. . . must prove that the statute is unconstitutional beyond a reasonable doubt.\u201d (\u00b6 8). This is a \u201cheavy burden\u201d (id<\/em>.) and \u201chigh burden.\u201d (\u00b6 18). She used the traditional rational basis test \u2013 the statute must be \u201cpatently arbitrary\u201d and \u201cbear no rational relationship to a legitimate government interest.\u201d (\u00b6 12). She quoted the U.S. Supreme Court\u2019s characterization of the rational basis test as \u201ca paradigm of judicial restraint\u201d and said the court \u201cowe[s] great deference to legislative action.\u201d (\u00b6\u00b6 17-18).<\/p>\n

Equally, she looked first and foremost to the text of the statute: \u201c[W]hen a statute\u2019s language is unambiguous, as this one is here, sound principles of statutory construction require that we not look to the title for guidance or instruction\u201d (\u00b6 27), citing a statute and a case for the proposition. She also collapsed the state constitutional analysis into the federal constitutional analysis, citing a 1989 state precedent that the state and federal clauses are \u201csubstantial equivalents.\u201d (\u00b6 12).<\/p>\n

She closed the majority opinion by writing, \u201c[O]ur proper judicial role is one of restraint and deference. Flynn v. DOA<\/em>, 216 Wis. 2d 521, 529, 576 N.W.2d 245 (1998) (\u2018Our form of government provides for one legislature, not two.\u2019).\u201d (\u00b6 38). It was the kind of sentence I would have last read in a Prosser or Wilcox dissent from the Butler era.<\/p>\n

The dissent in this case was authored by Justice Bradley, and it criticized the majority for its \u201cunwillingness to provide meaningful review.\u201d (\u00b6\u00b6 43 and 53). She charges that the majority \u201cabdicates its responsibility\u201d (\u00b6 44), forsakes \u201cmeaningful due process or equal protection review\u201d (\u00b6 47), \u201cfails to provide meaningful review\u201d (\u00b6 66), and \u201crefus[es] to test legislation under the equal protection and substantive due process provisions . . . .\u201d (\u00b6 53). In short, Justice Bradley, joined by Chief Justice Abrahamson, believes in a much less deferential role for the court when it evaluates legislation. That vision had its heyday in Ferdon<\/em>, when the court used rational basis review \u201cwith teeth\u201d and \u201cwith bite.\u201d Justice Butler has since been replaced by Justice Gableman, and as long as the court\u2019s balance remains in its current state, the majority has returned to a more humble and traditional view of the court\u2019s role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court released two opinions that reflect the court\u2019s new jurisprudential direction. Allow me to focus on the opinion with a much greater discussion of jurisprudence. (The other is State v. Wood, a due process challenge to forced administration of medication in a state-administered facility to a person who had been […]<\/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":[30,68,14,75],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","category-judges-judicial-process","category-criminal-law","category-wisconsin-supreme-court","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9433","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=9433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/law.marquette.edu\/facultyblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}