Decoding judicial elections: What exactly do elected judges do?
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During election season, it is easy to feel overwhelmed by campaign ads and voting guides. But what do the positions candidates are running for all entail? Especially for something like judicial races.
These races select state and local judges. In Minnesota, a judge serves six-year terms. This is true for the supreme court, the Minnesota Court of Appeals and for judges in district court.
In Minnesota’s general election in November, voters will see both statewide, and in some cases, local judicial races. Of the seven justices on the Minnesota Supreme Court, two of them are in contested elections. For the Minnesota Court of Appeals, there are 19 judges and this year one is in a contested race. In some cases, Minnesota Court of Appeals judges must reside in a specific congressional district, but the election is still statewide.
This year there are a handful of contested races in district courts. These include two races in Ramsey County, or the 2nd Judicial District, and some in the 7th Judicial District and the 10th Judicial District. The 7th Judicial District is in the west-central region of Minnesota, including the counties of Otter Tail, Stearns and Mille Lacs. The 10th Judicial District is a pocket of east-central Minnesota which includes the counties of Anoka, Sherburne, Chisago and Pine.
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When a judicial vacancy occurs — generally when a judge does not plan on running for reelection — a judge will announce their departure, and the current governor will appoint an interim judge in their place, selected from a list of qualified applicants created by a selection commission. The appointed judge will serve until at least the next judicial election.
The selection commission is made up of lawyer and citizen members.
Within the Minnesota Constitution, the only requirement a candidate must have to run for a judicial election is that they are “learned in the law.” This basically means candidates have gone to law school and are practicing, or in some cases, researching and teaching law. The constitution was written before law schools were widely accessible as they are now, so the way someone became “learned” sometimes looked different, according to Mitchell Hamline School of Law professor Peter Knapp who studies courts and Minnesota state law.
The constitution also requires that judges in Minnesota must retire at the age of 70, something that is much different than how the United States Supreme Court or other government positions function.
“That was what was written into our constitution, and that has been how the system has worked. We’ve certainly had judges that reached that age and felt that they were completely capable of continuing to function as effective justices or judges, but the constitution says what the constitution says, the law says what the law says, and those judges then are required to step down,” Knapp said.
When it comes to local judges on the ballot, these include judges serving in district courts. These judges oversee trials covering criminal and civil cases. For criminal cases, it is generally to the point of acquittal or conviction. In civil cases, things like someone getting injured in an accident, divorce or a contract dispute, district court judges see the case until a resolution is reached.
When there is an appeal, it will generally go to the Minnesota Court of Appeals. That court will affirm or reverse the district court judge’s decision. About 60 appeals each year go to the Minnesota Supreme Court, where they take a closer look, Knapp says.
Any murder in the first-degree cases go straight to the Minnesota Supreme Court.
Judicial districts are determined differently than congressional districts. Minnesota has 10 judicial districts compared to its eight congressional districts.
Very rarely are there contested judicial races in Minnesota, Knapp said. A race may be contested because there is a concern about a judge or something they have done, whether it be a ruling they made or something in their personal life like getting arrested, for example. Sometimes someone will file and say they do not think they should be in the position or it may be someone who is unhappy with the judge’s rulings.
Rarely does a sitting judge lose a race, but it happens more frequently in district courts. Judges can seek endorsements from political parties, but that also very rarely happens. Judges also do not learn who makes contributions to their campaign, which ensures they are not ruling in favor of a specific campaign supporter.
“We’ve ended up with very strong courts, both at the district court level, Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court,” Knapp said. “While people tend to think of courts changing or the political party of the governor who appoints them as everything, but the reality is even at the Minnesota level of the Minnesota Supreme Court, about 80 percent of the cases they decide each year they decide unanimously, without dissent. That’s more true of the United States Supreme Court than you might believe, just following the stories about the particular hot button issues that get decided.”