Supreme Court Justice David Prosser admitted to touching Justice Ann Walsh Bradley’s neck, according to investigation records released Friday by the Dane County Sheriff’s Department. The 117 pages provide details about the physical altercation on June 13 between the two justices and the increasing dysfunction on the state’s highest court.
In his interview, the report says, Prosser told a detective he remembered “feeling the warmth on the side of Justice Bradley’s neck in his hands.” He said that he then pulled his hands back and then he believed he “went limp.”
“Oh my God, I’m touching her neck,” Prosser said he thought, adding later, “What does any self-respecting man do when suddenly that man finds that his hands, or part of his hands are on a woman’s neck? Get them off the neck as soon as possible.”
According to the interviews, members of the state Supreme Court portrayed Prosser as a sometimes hot-headed colleague who called other justices names and at times made them fear for their safety.
Prosser “loses his cool repeatedly,” Justice Patrick Crooks told Dane County Sheriff Office investigators during a June 29 interview following a physical altercation between Prosser and another justice.
Rad more a the Journal Sentinel and the Wisconsin State Journal.
Read the full police reports here and here (by the Wisconsin State Journal).