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 Justice Louis Butler |
A Wisconsin attorney is challenging a state Supreme Court decision that he should pay a $90,000 penalty because the deciding vote was cast by a justice who accepted money from the attorney's opponents.
The case that sparked attorney James Donohoo's dispute with the high court was brought against a "gay' activist group called Action Wisconsin, which later called itself Fair Wisconsin. That group had described visiting pastor Grant Storms, who appeared at a conference on homofascism, as having advocated the murders of homosexuals.
Donohoo, on Storms' behalf, brought a defamation action, which a trial court judge, Patricia McMahon, dismissed as frivolous. An appeals level panel reversed the decision, concluding that the jury should have been given the dispute to resolve.
The state Supreme Court, however, stepped in and with the vote of Justice Louis B. Butler Jr., who had accepted campaign contributions from those opposing Donohoo, reinstated the order for him to pay about $90,000 in legal fees incurred because of the case.