WI Supreme Court Justice accused of assaulting a female colleague

Wow. David Prosser, a conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice and cheerleader for Gov. Walker’s anti-union efforts, has been accused of physically assaulting his colleague Justice Ann Walsh Bradley during a recent argument. TPM reports:

New details are emerging in this weekend’s story that Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser — a member of the court’s 4-3 conservative majority who was just re-elected to a ten-year term in a heated race that involved a recount and vote-tabulating controversies — allegedly attacked liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley during an argument over the court’s recent decision regarding the upholding of Gov. Scott Walker’s anti-public employee union legislation. Now, Bradley is speaking up, and saying publicly that she was assaulted by Prosser.

“The facts are that I was demanding that he get out of my office and he put his hands around my neck in anger in a chokehold,” Bradley told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Prosser has an ugly history of this kind of misogynistic behavior. Last last year, he called another female colleague a “total bitch” and then defended himself by saying, “I probably overreacted, but I think it was entirely warranted…They are masters at deliberately goading people into perhaps incautious statements. This is bullying and abuse of very, very long standing.”

As Digby notes, it takes spectacular gall to go with “the bitch made me do it” defense. This time he should probably come up with something else–or else just save everyone some trouble and quickly resign.