Wisconsin Supreme Court to livestream oral arguments, and what's coming up on their docket

The Supreme Court hearing room in the Capitol. Photograph by Margo Kirchner.

By Alexandria Staubach
 
The Wisconsin Supreme Court will livestream oral arguments while the state’s version of C-SPAN, WisconsinEye, remains shuttered. 
 
“The Wisconsin Supreme Court is committed to maintaining public access to its proceedings. To support transparency, the Court will provide a live stream of oral arguments,” said the court in a press release last week.
 
Audio access has been provided since 1997. That coverage will continue.
 
Arguments scheduled in February will be available through the Wisconsin court system website.
 
The court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in three cases on Feb. 10 and 11.
 
In Outagamie County v.  M.J.B., the court will consider whether a psychiatric report filed less than 48 hours before a final hearing for involuntary commitment violated M.J.B.’s rights.
 
The case comes to the high court from the District 3 Court of Appeals. There, a three-judge panel found the 48-hour disclosure requirement to be “central to statutory scheme,” and that a failure to comply “substantially affects the rights of an individual subject to commitment.”
 
Failure of the state to comply with the time requirement deprived the lower court of its competency to proceed, said the Court of Appeals. The court then ordered the state to reverse the commitment and involuntary medication of M.J.B.
 
Arguments in that case will take place at 9:45 a.m. on Feb. 10.

Cincinnati Insurance Company v. James Ropicky follows M.J.B. The case concerns whether the insurance company properly denied coverage under its policy’s construction-defect exclusion for damage caused by rain water infiltration. Whether Ropicky established an exception to the exclusion is also at issue.
 
On Feb. 11, at 9:45 a.m., the court will hear oral arguments in Konkanok Rabiebna v. Higher Educational Aids Board. The five plaintiffs, represented by Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty, assert that the state’s Minority Undergraduate Retention Program violates the Wisconsin Constitution on the basis of race and national origin.
 
The Legislature established the program in the 1980s.
 
Under state law, minority undergraduate scholarships can be awarded to individuals who are Black American, “American Indian,” “Hispanic,” or “admitted to the United States after December 31, 1975, and . . . either a former citizen of Laos, Vietnam, or Cambodia, or whose ancestor was or is a citizen of Laos, Vietnam, or Cambodia.”
 
According to WILL, the program amounts to discrimination based on race, national origin, and alienage.
 
Jefferson County Circuit Court Judge William F. Hue found that the state program met constitutional requirements, but the District 4 Court of Appeals disagreed.
 
You can read the Supreme Court’s synopsis of each case here and watch oral arguments here.