Prosser converts campaign account to legal defense fund

http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/prosser-converts-campaign-account-to-legal-defense-fund-k467gf9-163484186.html

Madison - State Supreme Court Justice David Prosser has re-christened his campaign finance account as a defense fund, which he said he is considering using to fight allegations that he violated judicial ethics rules by putting his hands on the neck of a fellow justice last year.

The Government Accountability Board, which oversees the state's ethics and elections law, approved Prosser's plans earlier this year, the agency confirmed Monday. But others - including the former top lawyer for the accountability board - questioned its views on how the fund could be used.

The defense fund could give Prosser a way to pay his legal bills without having to bear them personally. But his campaign account has just $1,145 in it and is already laden with a debt of about $229,000 from a recount last year.

In June 2011, a month after being declared the winner in the recount, Prosser got in an altercation with Justice Ann Walsh Bradley over when the court would release a 4-3 decision that upheld Gov. Scott Walker's plan to greatly limit collective bargaining for most public workers. Bradley rushed toward Prosser in an attempt to get him out of her office, and he put his hands on her neck in what he said was a defensive reflex. Four of the five other justices witnessed the incident, and they have given sharply differing accounts of it.

This March, the state Judicial Commission filed a complaint against Prosser contending he violated the judicial ethics code in that incident. The case has since stalled, and the justices are now considering whether they can ethically sit on his case...