Chief Justice Patience Roggensack announced that the 77-year-old Crooks died Monday, September 21, 2015, in his chambers. He was not seeking re-election. Appellate Judge Rebecca Bradley and Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Joe Donald have not said whether they would try to get onto the state’s highest court early.
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Thompson told a television interviewer last weekend that he can’t envision the possibility of his fellow Republican running for reelection for governor or making another bid for the United State presidency. They argued in a letter Monday that doing so “would unnecessarily heighten political partisanship, polarization and increased divisiveness on a court that already is now experiencing an unprecedented low level of citizen confidence”.
Walker has twice named Bradley to judicial appointments before, and she has the backing of conservatives in the officially nonpartisan race.
Heck said the governor should not consider leaving the post vacant, since a seventh vote is needed to break potential ties on cases.
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Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Patrick Crooks speaks at the Wisconsin Supreme Court in Madison, Wis., in November 2013. The deadline to apply is Friday.
