As justices retire, more changes come for Minnesota‘s Supreme Court

Another Minnesota Supreme Court Justice is retiring. Justice Margaret Chutich’s announcement on Tuesday tees up Gov. Walz for another appointment on the Minnesota Supreme court this summer. This will be his fourth appointee and will mean all seven justices will be DFL appointees.

“Anytime a new justice is added to the court, regardless of the party of the governor appointing her or him, it makes a difference on the court,” Pete Knapp, a Mitchell Hamline School of Law professor, said on MPR’s Morning Edition.

Knapp helped break down what the justice’s retirement will mean for Minnesotans.

Click the audio player for his full conversation with Cathy Wurzer. The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity and length.

What might be behind the turnover?

Well, one of the things that I think happens is we look to the United States Supreme Court as a model of what retirement for Supreme Court Justice is supposed to look like. And people tend to cling to those positions, really, throughout their lives and retire only very near the end of their careers.

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That hasn’t been true with the Minnesota Supreme Court. We’ve had justices retire to take positions in the federal system or leave the court to take positions in the federal system, or justices like Chief Justice Gildea, and now Justice Chutich to decide to step down to do other things with their lives, even though they're not yet 70.

Justices Chutich and Gildea’s terms would have expired this year. Each would have stood for reelection. And although we don’t have Wisconsin-style judicial races, I wonder if that played any factor in their decision?

We don’t have Wisconsin-style judicial elections. And both would have been re-elected easily. I suspect they were mindful of the timing, but I doubt that that was a governing factor in what prompted them to leave the court.

What’s the high court losing as these justices go on to other things to do?

You know, there are a couple things that I particularly will miss about both of these justices. Justice Anderson was very good about making sure that the perspective of Minnesotans throughout the state ended up being reflected in the work the court was doing.

Justice Chutich, of course, was the first openly gay justice that served on the court. And I think she described very movingly in her retirement letter, the importance that that had to a number of Minnesotans.

But she also was a justice who took care to craft her opinions so that they were readable without a whole lot of legal Latin or gobblygook getting in their way. I think she really wanted those opinions to be accessible to Minnesotans who didn't have legal training.

Have there been ramifications when one party appoints the majority of justices?

Anytime a new justice is added to the court, regardless of the party of the governor, appointing her or him, it makes a difference on the court.

We’ve seen this before. Gov. Dayton appointed six justices to the Minnesota Supreme Court, Gov. Pawlenty before him appointed five. And yet throughout that time, year-in, year-out somewhere between 70 to 80 percent of the decisions the court handed down, were handed down without dissent.

And across the course of this last year, that’s been true of this court as well. Even though five of the seven justices were appointed by a DFL governor, 75 percent of those decisions in 2023, didn't have a dissent.

And I think that speaks not only to the kinds of cases that are being handled by the court, but the people that are handling them. They’re not partisan; they are not ideologues. They are thoughtful, careful justices who work to craft the law in a way that serves Minnesotans.

There’s a justice who is Muslim, one is Native American, the chief justice is African American one is LGBTQ. How important is it for the High Court to look like a changing Minnesota?

You know, I think Minnesota broke new ground when it became the first Supreme Court to have a majority of women on the court back in the day of Justice Wahl and Justice Coyne.

I think it’s extremely important. People need to understand that the work that that court does is reflective of the experience of a wide range of Minnesotans who looked like they looked, who have had life experiences like they’ve had, regardless of who they are.

And the justices — well, of course, all have legal training and have been lawyers — really do across the course of the last several decades better reflect what the state looks like.