Prosser is Wisconsin Supreme Court's most centrist justice.

• Author: Ziemer, David

Byline: David Ziemer

David T. Prosser Jr. is the most centrist of the justices on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, while Chief Justice Shirley S. Abrahamson is most on the fringe of the court.

That's one of the conclusions of Wisconsin Law Journal's analysis of the Supreme Court's 2000-2001 term, which ended in July.

Prosser was the justice most likely to be in the majority, siding with the majority in 80 of the 90 cases the court heard. He dissented in only eight cases, and did not participate in two.

Abrahamson was least likely to be on the winning side, joining the majority in 65 cases, and dissenting in 25.

Justice Diane S. Sykes was close behind Prosser, siding with the majority in 78 cases, followed by Justice N. Patrick Crooks with 77, Justice William A. Bablitch with 75, Justice Jon P. Wilcox with 74, and Justice Ann Walsh Bradley coming in just ahead of Abrahamson with 67.

Of the 90 cases, the court was unanimous in 47, while 43 resulted in at least one dissenter.

(For the purpose of this analysis, cases in which no decision resulted - because of an even split on the court or a conclusion that review was improvidently granted - were not counted.)

In the split decisions, two combinations of justices proved most likely to be on the same side of an issue: Crooks and Wilcox; and Abrahamson and Bradley.

Crooks and Wilcox sided together in 39 of the 43 disputed cases, a 91% rate of concurrence. The figures were the same for the Abrahamson/Bradley pairing.

Except in unanimous decisions, the justices in each pairing rarely agreed with a justice in the other pairing.

Abrahamson sided with Wilcox and Crooks in only 14% of disputed cases.

Bradley sided with Wilcox only 19% of the time, and with Crooks only 23%.

Criminal decisions

Crooks and Wilcox were most in concord in the criminal cases, agreeing with each other in every single one of those matters.

In 29 criminal cases considered by the court (including cases concerning parole and sexually violent persons) the court was unanimous in only 12, siding with the State in seven, and with the defendant in five.

Of the 17 criminal cases that produced a divided court, only Wilcox and Crooks agreed with each other in every one. The justices second most likely to concur in criminal cases were Abrahamson and Bradley, agreeing in 88% of split decisions.

The justices least likely to agree in split criminal decisions were Abrahamson/ Wilcox and Abrahamson/Crooks.

Abrahamson agreed with Wilcox in a mere 6...