Why the Wisconsin Supreme Court “chokehold” controversy won’t necessarily end in a resignation:

Over at Legal Insurrection, William Jacobson writes:

This now has gone too far for both to survive on the Court.

If Justice Bradley charged at Prosser as some reports indicate, then she must resign. Even if Prosser did defend himself in a physical manner, if Bradley initiated things, that’s it.

If Prosser initiated the contact without physical provocation (i.e., not in response to Bradley charging at him), then he should resign.

Word. I’ll add this: if any other Justice is “spinning” or in any way distorting or weighting the facts in order to serve a political or personal agenda, that Justice should resign, too.

Legal professionals all over Wisconsin are brushing up their resumes and dusting off the rolodexes in preparation for all the appointments Governor Walker’ll have to make.

But. I disagree with William that somebody has to resign. There’s too much wiggle room – it’s entirely possible for two people to witness the same event and come away with very different ideas about what happened.

Unless somebody was taking video of the incident – incredibly unlikely – then the best we can hope for is a “he said/she said” that leans heavily toward the “he said.”

By the way, it’s looking more and more like that’s what we’re getting.

Still: Bradley just has to stick to her story: she was angry, and remembers being choked. It will be impossible to ever prove she was lying.

Unless, of course, somebody’s doing an open records request on email and phone records, particularly between Bradley, Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson, and the media that broke the story.

Note: read Christian Schneider’s latest on the story. He appears to be doing some digging.