The end of the Chisholm Trail

The Wisconsin Supreme Court swats down the John Doe investigation. Big time.

Dealing Gov. Scott Walker a victory just as his presidential campaign gets underway, the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a sweeping decision Thursday ruled the governor's campaign and conservative groups had not violated campaign finance laws.

The ruling means the end of the investigation, which has been stalled for 18 months after a lower court judge determined no laws were violated even if Walker's campaign and the groups had worked together as prosecutors believe.

The victory isn't Walker's, actually. It's a victory for free speech and against some truly awful behavior on the part of John Chisholm, the Milwaukee County prosecutor behind the act, and his bobo special prosecutor Francis Schmitz. Writing for the majority, Justice Michael Gableman was categorical in his assertions about the case:

"It is utterly clear that the special prosecutor has employed theories of law that do not exist in order to investigate citizens who were wholly innocent of any wrongdoing," Gableman wrote.

Calling the challengers brave, Gableman wrote that their litigation gave the court "an opportunity to re-endorse its commitment to upholding the fundamental right of each and every citizen to engage in lawful political activity and to do so free from the fear of the tyrannical retribution of arbitrary or capricious governmental prosecution. Let one point be clear: our conclusion today ends this unconstitutional John Doe investigation."

It's about time. The case has stunk on ice from the outset. It's bad enough that the investigators were conducting nighttime raids on people who had done nothing wrong, but the prosecutors were regularly leaking results of their "investigation" to willing henchmen in the media. The process itself was the punishment, as Gableman noted in his opinion (via Ann Althouse):

 "The breadth of the documents gathered pursuant to subpoenas and seized pursuant to search warrants is amazing.  Millions of documents, both in digital and paper copy, were subpoenaed and/or seized.  Deputies seized business papers, computer equipment, phones, and other devices, while their targets were restrained under police supervision and denied the ability to contact their attorneys.  The special prosecutor obtained virtually every document possessed by the Unnamed Movants relating to every aspect of their lives, both personal and professional, over a five-year span (from 2009 to 2013).  Such documents were subpoenaed and/or seized without regard to content or relevance to the alleged violations of Ch. 11.  As part of this dragnet, the special prosecutor also had seized wholly irrelevant information, such as retirement income statements, personal financial account information, personal letters, and family photos."

Sweet stuff, that. I don't know whether Chisholm or Schmitz will be looking at any repercussions for their actions, but they should really get the full Nifong. The entire investigation was an abuse of power and their conduct was reprehensible.