Judge refuses to follow state supreme court order to dismiss voter ID suit, steps aside from case
Faced with a state supreme court order telling him to dismiss a lawsuit that challenged a state statute requiring voters to produce identification, a Wisconsin judge is pursuing a highly unusual course of action.
In a Thursday order, Dane County Circuit Judge Richard Niess said he could not in good conscience follow the supreme court’s direction and hence was recusing himself from the case without dismissing it, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.
“The Wisconsin Supreme Court has ordered this court to deliver the coup de grace to this case by dismissing plaintiff’s amended complaint on remand. However, doing so would violate my oath to ‘support … the constitution of the State of Wisconsin,’” the judge wrote, referring to his oath of office. “Accordingly, I recuse.”
Another judge has now been assigned to the Madison case but hasn’t yet ruled, the newspaper says.
