Justice David T. Prosser Jr. was appointed to the Supreme Court by Gov. Tommy G. Thompson in 1998, and elected to a 10-year term in 2001.
Born in Chicago, Justice Prosser was raised in Appleton, Wis., and received his bachelor's degree from DePauw University in 1965 and his law degree from the UW Law School in 1968.
Before joining the court, Justice Prosser served on the Wisconsin Tax Appeals Commission where he conducted hearings and issued decisions on disputes related to Wisconsin taxation.
Justice Prosser was appointed to the Tax Appeals Commission following an 18-year career in the Wisconsin Legislature where he represented the Appleton area in the Assembly from 1979 through 1996. During his tenure, he served six years as Assembly minority leader and two years as Assembly speaker. For 14 years, he was a legislative member of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws. In 2005 he was reappointed to the Commission by Assembly Speaker John Gard and served until 2007.
Prior to his election to the Assembly, Justice Prosser served as Outagamie County district attorney. He also worked in Washington, D.C., first as an attorney/advisor in the Office of Criminal Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, then as administrative assistant to U.S. Rep. Harold Froehlich, a member of the House Judiciary Committee during the Watergate impeachment inquiry. Justice Prosser served on the Supreme Court Planning and Policy Advisory Committee's Court Financing Subcommittee (2002-04), Judicial COuncil of Wisconsin (2002-06), and currently serves on the Supreme Court Citation of Unpublished Opinions Committee (2009).
Justice Prosser is also a member of the James E. Doyle American Inns of Court, Friends of the Fox, and the James Watrous Gallery Advisory Committee.
His current term expires July 31, 2011.
Justice Patience Drake Roggensack was elected to the Supreme Court in 2003. She was the first Wisconsin Court of Appeals judge ever elected to the Supreme Court, and continues to be the only Supreme Court justice to have served on the intermediate appellate court.
Born in Joliet, Ill., Justice Roggensack received a bachelor's degree in zoology in 1962 from Drake University. She worked as a research associate at several universities prior to entering the UW Law School, where she earned a law degree in 1977.
Before joining the Supreme Court, Justice Roggensack was elected to the Court of Appeals in 1996 and re-elected in 2002. Prior to becoming a judge, Justice Roggensack practiced law for 16 years in Madison.
During her career, Justice Roggensack has been a member of a variety of law-related organizations including the American Judicature Society and the Fellows of the American Bar Foundation. She is past president of the Western District of Wisconsin Bar Association and a past member of the State Bar of Wisconsin Bench-Bar Committee. She also has served frequently as a guest lecturer at the UW Law School and MATC.
Justice Roggensack also has served on the boards of a number of non-profit organizations, including the YMCA, YWCA, Olbrich Botanical Society, Wisconsin Center for Academically Talented Youth, Friends of the Arboretum, A Fund for Women, and the International Women's Forum, of which she is a past president.
Justice Roggensack is married and has three children.
Her current term expires July 31, 2013.
Justice Annette Kingsland Ziegler was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2007.
Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Justice Ziegler received her bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and Business Administration from Hope College in Holland, Michigan in 1986. She earned her law degree from Marquette University in 1989.
Upon graduation from law school, Justice Ziegler was in private practice where she engaged in civil litigation. She also served as a pro bono special assistant district attorney in Milwaukee County in 1992 and 1996. Immediately prior to serving as a circuit court judge, she was an assistant United States attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin.
Before joining the Supreme Court, Justice Ziegler served as a Washington County Circuit Court judge. She was appointed to the bench in 1997, elected in 1998, and reelected in 2004. She was the first female jurist in Washington County. As a circuit court judge, she was the deputy chief judge for the Third Judicial District and served six years as the presiding judge of Washington County. In 1999, Justice Ziegler sat as a Court of Appeals judge in the District II Court of Appeals Judicial Exchange Program. Justice Ziegler was a faculty member at the Wisconsin Judicial College and has served as faculty at other seminars.
She has also been active in her community, volunteering her time for numerous charitable and social welfare organizations.
Justice Ziegler is married and has three children.
Her current term expires July 31, 2017.
Justice Michael J. Gableman was elected to a 10-year term in 2008.
Justice Gableman was born in West Allis, Wis. He received his bachelor’s degree from Ripon College in 1988, and his law degree from Hamline University School of Law in 1993.
Prior to his election to the Court, Justice Gableman served as the circuit court judge for Burnett County. He was appointed to the Burnett County Circuit Court in 2002 by then-Gov. Scott McCallum, and elected in 2003.
Justice Gableman also has served as an administrative law judge for the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, district attorney for Ashland County, assistant district attorney for Marathon and Langlade counties, assistant corporation counsel in Forest County, and has worked in private practice. In addition, he served on the State Court/Tribal Court Relations Committee and the Judicial Council.
His current term expires July 31, 2018.
Patrick Marley of the Journal Sentinal:
A deeply divided state Supreme Court adopted a rule Wednesday (October 28, 2009) that says endorsements, campaign contributions and independently run ads in themselves are not enough to force a judge off of a case.
The court adopted the proposal on a 4-3 vote, with those in the majority saying the rule was essential to clarifying policies at a time when justices increasingly face charges of bias. The dissenters said the court was only further clouding the issue.
(snip)
Voting for the rule change were Roggensack and Justices David Prosser, Annette K. Ziegler and Michael Gableman. Joining Crooks in his dissent were Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson and Justice Ann Walsh Bradley.
Brennan Center For Justice at New York University School of Law
The court’s two newest members – Annette Ziegler and Michael Gableman, who formed half of the four-justice majority in favor of the rules – are the recent beneficiaries of exorbitant campaign spending by the very group that wrote one of the petitions adopted by the court, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce (WMC). (Ziegler and Gableman each bear scars from recent dust-ups of their own, Ziegler for repeatedly failing to recuse from cases involving financial conflicts and Gableman for campaign ads he ran in 2008 that resulted in ethics charges .) Then, in December, the court had to withdraw its October vote when it became clear that there were details that still needed reconciling between the two petitions the majority had adopted verbatim.
So in conclusion (and as plain as day) OUR NEXT CHANCE TO THROW ONE OF THESE BOUGHT AND PAID FOR CORPORATE WHORES OFF THE BENCH IS APRIL 2013!!
For more information please see my previous diary WI-SC: THIS IS A BIG F*ING DEAL!!
To volunteer for GOTV or phone banking please visit JoAnne Kloppenburg's Campaign Website.
Because Ms Kloppenburg accepted public financing her campaign cannot accept monetary donations, but The Democratic Party of Wisconsin can.