Wednesday, January 8, 2014

A Gimme For The Plaintiffs

Scott Walker has returned to the scene of the crime.

Walker has returned to the Milwaukee County Courthouse to serve jury duty.  He was originally supposed to have served six months ago, but that was postponed when the courthouse caught on fire thanks to deferred maintenance by himself and his successor, Chris Abele.

But just as it was in the eight years Walker was county executive, he is unable to step foot in the courthouse without mucking things up.

He was picked for two jury pools.

The first one was for a murder trial.  Walker was not picked to serve on that jury.

The second was for a civil law suit regarding a personal injury.  Walker was picked for this jury, but it didn't take him long before he created another miscarriage of justice by being found out that he received thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from the CEO of the insurance agency being sued:
Gov. Scott Walker remained on a jury in a personal injury civil trial Tuesday, despite having received campaign donations from an executive of an insurance company that is a defendant in the case.

Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Kevin Martens noted someone had disclosed to him that the governor had received donations from a Secura executive. The judge made his remarks before jurors were brought into the courtroom.

Walker received $2,000 in donations from Secura CEO John Bykowski from 2009 to 2011, according to a campaign finance database maintained by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. The five Bykowski donations to Walker all were made while Bykowski was a Secura executive.
Fellow progressives jumped on this, assuming the worst, in that Walker would automatically side with the defendant. That is, by the way, a very reasonable assumption, given Walker's track record.

However, looking at the big picture, it's an automatic gimme to the plaintiffs.

Best case scenario, the jury finds in their favor and they get the money they were seeking.

But if the jury would decide against them, they have an automatic reason for calling a mistrial. This is especially true considering this issue was not brought up during the jury selection process.

Now, if the plaintiffs happened to have signed a recall petition, well, that's a whole other story.

And for the record, I do not have any confirmation that he visited his old office suite, reminiscing about things like where the secret router was hidden.

But I did hear that Walker and Abele, did compare notes on the most effective ways to bust unions and destroy the democratic process.

4 comments:

  1. Wouldn't that have come up in Voir Dire?

    Unless the judge was completely slipshod in the instructions he gave to the jury pool, and never presented an opportunity, it should have been Walker's responsibility to inform the judge that he had a conflict of interest.

    But then I suppose that would have made it more difficult for the J-S to run this bit of fluffer P.R.:

    http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/scott-walker-reports-for-jury-duty-but-not-picked-for-murder-trial-b99178275z1-238918711.html

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  2. Did you happen to note the judge's recent quote on who it was that gave him the information on the campaign donations?

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  3. If the judge had been informed of the campaign donation before prospective jurors were brought in to the court room, he should have immediately given Snotty an opportunity to confirm or deny the link.

    But instead of being sanctioned or reprimanded or disciplined, the judge will probably get a reward, or a political payoff, instead.

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  4. Scott Walker doing the honorable thing? Impossible. He is incapable of it. Walker is the new Nixon. His house of cards is starting to crumble. Can't wait until they fall cause no one will pardon Walker like Ford did Nixon. And no one should. Walker deserves the be "the one" who destroys the Republican brand.

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