(upbeat tones) - [Narrator] "Your Legislators" is made possible by the Minnesota Corn Growers Association.

From developing best practices that help farmers better protect our natural resources to the latest innovations in corn-based plastics.

Minnesota corn farmers are proud to invest in third party research, leading to a more sustainable future for our local communities.

Minnesota Farmers Union.

Standing for agriculture, working for farmers.

On the web at mfu.org.

(upbeat music) - It is my privilege today to lead a conversation with two of my colleagues on the Minnesota Supreme Court , Associate Justice Natalie Hudson, and Associate Justice Gordon Moore, about the work of the court and their role as members.

I'm Barry Anderson and I'm also a member of that court, but today I'm also your úhost and moderator of this conversation, a role that I fill in a variety of other public affairs programming here on Pioneer Public Television.

Members of the court, in addition to their regular duties, reading and writing, participating in oral argument, and the other work of the court, deciding cases, also engage with the public in various ways, explaining what the court does and how the court works.

Today's conversation is another example of those outreach efforts.

I hope that you enjoy the conversation and discussion that follows.

I begin this evening as I do with all of my efforts to moderate public affairs programming here at Pioneer Public Television, by giving my guests an opportunity to introduce themselves.

I begin with Justice Natalie Hudson, who is the second most senior associate justice member of our court.

Justice Hudson, tell the viewers a little bit about your background and your time on the court and some of your other work.

- Thank you very much, Justice Anderson.

Let me first say, it's really a pleasure to be with you and your audience here this evening.

I'm originally from Missouri.

My family moved here to Minnesota in 1968.

So this is pretty much home for me at this point.

And I grew up primarily in Roseville, Minnesota.

I went to Mounds View High School in New Brighton, and I attended college at Arizona State University and came back home for law school, where I attended the University of Minnesota Law School, graduating in 1982.

Most of my career has been in the public sector.

Specifically, I started my career with Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services, otherwise known as Legal Aid, and I spent four years there.

I also worked very briefly at a private law firm, the Robbins Law Firm, and I was the St. Paul City Attorney for two years.

My appellate work is probably my most significant work, in terms of what I do now.

I spent eight years at the Attorney General's office in the Criminal Appellate division, arguing cases before the court of appeals and the supreme court .

And interestingly, I ended up serving on both of those courts.

I served 13 years on the court of appeals, from 2002 to 2015, having been appointed by Governor Jesse Ventura.

And then in 2015, I was appointed to the supreme court, to this court by Governor Mark Dayton.

So that's just kind of a brief thumbnail.

I've had a wonderful career and I certainly enjoy my time here on the supreme court.

So I'll turn back over to you, Justice Anderson.

- Thank you and we'll get back to some of your... We'll get to some of your experience in a little bit here.

And as I promised you earlier, we're gonna cross examine you a little bit about some of your family history as well, but we'll come to that in just a moment.

I also wanna take this opportunity to give Justice Gordon Moore an opportunity to introduce himself.

Justice Hudson is among our most experienced and veteran members of the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Justice Moore is our most recent addition to the court, having joined the court almost two years ago.

Justice Moore, the floor is yours.

Tell our viewers a little bit about yourself.

- Well, thank you very much, Justice Anderson for that nice introduction.

And it is an honor to be on Pioneer Public Television, I guess a long time listener, a first time caller all type of scenario here.

I lived in Worthington for 25 years before coming to the court and Pioneer Public Television was part of our daily television diet.

And even your legislators occasionally was on at the Moore household.

I am a native of Rochester, Minnesota.

I grew up in Rochester and went to Mayo High School, so I was a Mayo Spartan.

I went to Carleton College in Northfield, graduated from Carleton and went to law school in Iowa City at the University of Iowa.

After that I started with the Minnesota Attorney General's office.

At that point, Hubert H. "Skip" Humphrey III was Minnesota's Attorney General and I worked for a lot of really fine attorneys at that office.

Jack Tunheim, who's now a senior judge on the federal court in Minneapolis.

Norm Coleman, former Senator with Solicitor General when I was there.

And the list goes on of attorneys that were influential for me.

After about eight years at the Attorney General's office, I went back to outstate, Minnesota.

My wife and I moved to Worthington and I joined the firm of Von Holtum, Malters and Shepherd, doing a variety of small town legal practice, as well as the municipal city attorney work for the city of Worthington and some other small hamlets in Nobles County.

I was elected Nobles County Attorney in 2002, when the position went to a full-time office, was reelected twice and then had the good fortune in 2012 of being appointed to the district court bench in the fifth district in Nobles County by Governor Mark Dayton.

I served there for eight and a half years.

Enjoyed it very much.

The district court really kind of defined me in many ways.

But I had the good fortune of being appointed by Governor Tim Walz to supreme court during the, I guess, the height of the Covid pandemic.

I sort of feel like I'm the Covid justice of the court.

I arrived quietly in the summer of 2020 (laughs) and remain here and have been honored by the privilege of getting to work with my esteem colleagues and on the important issues the court handles on a daily basis.

- So we're gonna come back to some of that pandemic experience, because I think our viewers will want to hear about both the district court and supreme court experience.

But we're gonna go in a little different direction.

Justice Hudson, you of course are a pioneer in many respects, but I think our viewers would like to hear a little bit about your dad, who was also a pioneer.

I had the privilege of attending his funeral and at the time of that funeral, I had the opportunity to it with several people for whom your father was a real role model and leader.

His life story's pretty remarkable too.

We don't wanna spend a lot of time on this, but can you introduce him to our viewers, maybe take a couple of minutes to talk about his significance to Minnesota history actually?

- Absolutely, Justice Anderson.

I'm always happy to talk about my father.

My father, Don Hudson, Donald Hudson, was just an amazing, amazing man, a football coach and athletic director for most of his life, but probably best known, and only because it came to light later in his life, my father actually, when we moved here in 1968, he was the first black football coach at a high school here in Minneapolis, now defunct Minneapolis Central High School and had an amazing career there.

He then went on though to become the first black head football coach at a predominantly white college when he was hired as the head football coach for Macalester College in 1971.

And he served as the head coach there from 71 to 75.

But that first went unrecognized for nearly 35 years.

Macalester said little about it at the time.

And in fact, there was some thought that the coach from Oberlin College had been, a black coach there had been the first and it was reported as such by Howard Cosell, no less.

But in fact it was my father.

I know, I know.

(laughs) But you know, Mac was not known for its football prowess.

It was, is and was, known more for its academic rigor.

And so my dad had a difficult time fielding the team, but he did.

But I think, what stands out for me though, was his perseverance.

Because at the time, you know, this was a tumultuous time in Minnesota, in terms of race relations.

And he was not welcomed in many quarters as the first African American coach.

There were at some points the school was called Black-Alester because of my dad's presence.

And some of the white assistant football coaches walked off the field and they would not coach with my father.

But he persevered and he...

Even though the team did not have a winning record, his players loved him and he loved them.

And he served as not only an educator, but a mentor.

Many of his former players, both from Central and Macalester, stayed in contact with my father his entire life.

And they loved him and he loved them.

They stay in contact, some of them with me, they took me under their wings.

So I'm very proud of my father.

He was very humble.

He said little about the lack of recognition.

He just wanted to coach football.

But he made a lasting impact here in Minnesota on the lives of so, so many young men and now grown men.

So that's a little bit about my dad.

His favorite thing, his most famous saying to all of us kids and to his players is, "There's no right way to do the wrong thing."

And I think that kind of summarizes my dad.

Fortunately, last thing I'll say, Macalester did, to their credit, they came around, after research showed that my dad was the first.

And in October of 2007 at a Homecoming game, they had a full recognition for my father, declared it, Don Hudson Day, and the players, former players and family, we got together and had a wonderful celebration.

And so my dad lived to see that.

So I'm very happy about that.

- Well, it's a remarkable story.

And as I said, I didn't have the privilege of meeting him, but I did have the privilege of meeting some of his players.

And it's clear, he made a major influence on, he was a major influence on their lives.

Let's talk about some more current events.

And I wanna turn to you, Justice Moore, to talk a little bit about the Covid experience and the reason I'm inviting you to sort of kick off our conversation and what challenges that has posed for both the district court and our appellate courts is because, unlike other members of the court, you had direct experience with both.

You began your... You began your judicial career at the supreme court in the Covid environment, but you were also a district court judge in that environment.

And I think it would be helpful for our viewers to understand, "What does that mean?

", in terms of being able to administer justice.

Now we appear to be coming out of that environment, but we certainly have the backlog of cases that has to be dealt with, which is also part of that conversation.

Justice Moore, the floor is yours.

- Well I would argue, Justice Anderson, that the district court has been affected most dramatically by the Covid pandemic, and frankly, more so than the appellate courts.

I think the appellate courts have been able to, more or less, carry on with their calendar.

With the Zoom environment, it works reasonably well with the attorneys and the justices and the judges of the court of appeals.

But the district court depends on people coming into the courtroom and trials are constitutionally required to be public open events with the defendants confronting their accusers in open court.

And so in March of 2020, when the emergency orders started getting issued, I was on the bench in Worthington, and it was literally, making it up as we went along.

I mean, it would be, "What's today's most recent order from the supreme court?

What are we supposed to do with this?"

And, "How can we conduct business?"

I, like many of my vintage, I believe I had never heard of Zoom.

WebEx was a vague idea.

We had used the ITB technology for some remote appearances, particularly by interpreters.

But really we weren't relying on remote technology much at all.

That was frankly an initiative we were trying to encourage courts to use, particularly for outstate, Minnesota.

And so for a time, as you know, Justice Anderson and Justice Hudson, our jury trials were shut down in the district courts.

It was just not deemed to be safe and appropriate to be asking citizens to come in and sit as jurors, witnesses to come in, to sit, sometimes elbow to elbow, in jury boxes and courtrooms that really couldn't be retrofitted.

And at that time, it was really frightening, frankly.

I think, people that were working in the district court were concerned about their safety.

Jurors were calling in concerned.

And so the supreme court wisely put a moratorium on jury trials until we could come up with a health and safety plan to rectify that.

As a result of that, though, our district courts got behind.

We have a backlog of cases and have had a backlog of cases.

In November 21, the Judicial Council, it started an initiative to reduce the major criminal backlog by 20% every four months through hopefully, June of 23.

But that requires our district courts to clear more cases on a monthly basis than they're taking in, which is a challenge.

Things are improving.

The numbers, the trends are absolutely moving in the right direction.

But for a period of time, the district court's ability to hold public proceedings was severely affected.

And in some courtrooms, we could take apart the visitors gallery and retrofit the visitors gallery to serve as a jury box.

That happened in Hennepin County, most notably in the Derek Chauvin trial, but a lot of outstate courtrooms are not built that way.

They're courtrooms that have fixed seating, you can't move the things around.

It was just practically impossible to hold a jury trial safely in those in environments.

And so there were...

I know courts that were looking at high school auditoriums, some other types of public facilities to try to keep the courtroom doors open.

Courtroom doors stayed open, I wanna emphasize that, but it did have an effect on how fast things were getting done, particularly in the district courts.

- The complications in Greater Minnesota, of course include the fact that many of those courtrooms are in courthouses that are historic buildings.

And so for example, the Martin County building is on the National Register of Historic Places.

And so the ability to even even retrofit or to make changes was a challenge, would be a challenge under any circumstances, let alone an international pandemic.

Justice Hudson, let's talk a little bit about the pandemic experience at the supreme court.

We won't spend a lot of time on it because I think as Justice Moore suggests, that it probably was a much bigger effect on the district court, but certainly it had an effect on the supreme court and the court of appeals as well.

And maybe you can talk a little bit about that experience and some of the innovations that we use to deal with it and where we are today.

- Yes, it certainly did have an effect on both our court and the court of appeals.

Like the district courts, I think many of us on the supreme court had said, "What's this thing called Zoom?"

And, "Why do we have to do it?"

(laughs) Because one of the real values of oral argument is the ability to have those attorneys in front of the court, where we can question them about their positions on the legal issues before us.

And there's a dynamic there that you completely lose, or not completely, but that is largely lost when you're doing that via Zoom.

But that's what we had to do because, as Justice Moore indicated, it simply was not safe to do otherwise.

And so the court, the supreme court, had to do an about-face in very short order and figure out how to conduct our oral arguments remotely.

And I must say, I must credit our IT people here at the judicial branch and here in particular at the Judicial Center.

They are amazing, fabulous people.

And with their help and the help of our commissioner's office and the cooperation of the justices, I mean, it was all hands on deck.

We were able to, in fairly short order, began to conduct our oral arguments of via Zoom.

And I think we did that for well over a year, Justice Anderson, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but well over a year.

And it really did change the nature of the oral argument, but I must say, the attorneys here in Minnesota adapted, we as a court adapted.

We had a few that were a little rough in the beginning, in terms of, talking over one another and the attorneys didn't know when to break in, but we made adjustments.

One of the adjustments that we made and then have continued, actually to this day, is we decided to ask questions in order of seniority, so that it was clear to the attorneys who was speaking and rather than kind of jumping in as we do when we are in person.

And so that ended up making it a much more orderly proceeding.

And likewise, what we did is we started allowing the attorneys to have three minutes of uninterrupted time at the beginning of their oral argument.

And that's the part that we have continued today, because the attorneys found it helpful and so did we.

We also conferenced via Zoom for a long, long time.

Poor Justice Moore, I don't think justice Moore saw the inside of our conference room for months.

Because he- - Until very recently as a matter of fact.

- Until very recently.

- Yes, literally.

- But we could not do the necessary social distancing in our supreme court conference room.

And so we ended up conferencing in one of our larger conference rooms that we, until this point, had rarely used.

So, and again, that process too, was a difficult transition for the court because it is so important when we are considering these difficult legal issues, for us to come together and see each other and talk with each other and hash these issues out.

And you lose some of that via Zoom, but we made the most of it.

So I must say though, that we are all thrilled to be back in person, and we've been back in person for our oral arguments, as well as our conferencing, oh gosh, help me, my colleagues here, I wanna say for the last eight or nine months maybe, we've been back.

- We moved back to conferencing.

We moved back to oral arguments in the courtroom with court physically present in August of 2021.

And with a couple of exceptions along the way where problems have been encountered, because we have to be conscious of lawyers who may have, who may test positive, or there may be issues there.

And so the courts had to be flexible as well.

And so we've had a couple of exceptions along the way, but we basically moved back to our regular environment, at least in terms of our argument, last August.

Let's talk a bit about the- - I think until just very recently, I think until just very recently, I'm sorry, Justice Anderson, and we've also been wearing masks on the bench.

But as Covid has waned, we've been able to eliminate the mask at this point.

So I'm sorry.

Go ahead, Justice Anderson.

- So let's talk a little bit about the process that the court follows.

The court issues about a hundred opinions a year, that number's gonna be down, was down a little bit last term, it'll be down a little bit this term, and probably will then creep back up.

And the court communicates with the lawyers who appear before, first, in terms of oral argument, and then in terms of a written opinion.

Justice Moore, this was a new experience for you, because you were a sole judge, a judge sitting in a single courtroom, which you had colleagues, but it's a very different environment to be working with six other people, some of whom have, they have wrong opinions you have to correct them on.

(all chuckle) So maybe you could talk a little bit about what that change was like and tell our viewers, "What is the process of actually creating a written opinion for the public to read?"

And then we're gonna talk a little bit about what that opinion looks like and what it means.

But tell our viewers a little bit about how that works.

- Well, Justice Anderson, as you know, when you're a district court judge, you don't have others reviewing your work until, or unless there's an appeal.

And then obviously the court of appeals and the supreme court could correct your work.

But for the most part, in the district court, your decision of issuing opinions is between you and a law clerk.

And you try to figure it out as best you can.

But when you're in one of those counties like Nobles, which is sort of a judge in a half county, meaning I was usually there by myself.

I don't think I ever had another judge review anything that I sent out before it was issued.

Probably should have, but the corrections that were done were done by my colleagues at the court of appeals and supreme court.

Well on the supreme court, obviously the process of issuing decisions is a lot more collaborative and deliberative and with a lot of input.

We all review, unless we're recused from a case, every justice reviews the circulating opinions that are created.

There is a author of the opinion.

If there's a majority opinion and a concurrence or a dissent, we have different authors of those, and we all get input on everything that's submitted.

And it's a very deliberative process.

We have a group of outstanding law clerks that assist us in getting written work done.

We have the benefit of the supreme court commissioner and his assistants that are really subject matter experts in lots of different topics, and can help, particularly people like me who are new to the court, try to avoid problems by stray comments and opinions or other maybe unanticipated consequences.

And so there's a real deliberative process.

And I remember sometimes at the district court, wondering, "Why does it take so long for those opinions to get issued?"

Well, now my vision is a little different.

I understand, in a way that I did not, about why it sometimes takes a while for our decisions to get issued, because they are establishing the law for the state in a particular area.

And we need to get it right.

We need to measure 30 times cut one sort of scenario.

And we do.

At the district court, it's sort of the urgent care/emergency room of the district courts.

We're under a pretty tight timeline to get decisions out.

And frankly, you stabilize the patient and move them along as best you can.

And if you get it wrong, you know that your colleagues in the district court, or in the court of appeals will tell you that.

Supreme court, we don't have many of our opinions reviewed by the United States Supreme Court.

That's a very infrequent event.

So we really do owe it to the bar and to the public to get our decisions as right as we possibly can and that does take some deliberation.

And I've learned, frankly, the process just is different at the supreme court, and I've had to adjust my writing and some of my expectations accordingly.

- Justice Hudson, let's talk a little bit about the role of the dissent.

And I think the public, to the extent they read our opinions and dissents, and of course this should be the most important thing in their lives, I'm sure that they hang on every word we write.

(all chuckle) But assuming that not to be the case, maybe we could talk a little bit about why dissents are important and the value they bring, and maybe disabuse the public of the notion that because there's a sharp dissent where members of the court might disagree of by a particular issue, that there's something personal about that, because that's not the case.

Talk a little bit about the role of the dissent, Justice Hudson.

- Absolutely.

Well the role of the dissent is actually quite important and quite valuable.

Typically the court, well I think almost always the court, strives to be unanimous, but sometimes the court cannot be unanimous.

Sometimes one or two justices simply sees the law differently and thinks that the majority opinion is incorrect.

And in those cases, that particular justice or justices will author what's called a dissent and set forth that justice's view of the law and why the majority opinion is incorrect.

And I think there are several things that are quite valuable about that.

One, I found that whenever there's a majority, whenever there's a dissent, it actually strengthens the majority because as the opinions get exchanged back and forth and as the majority author and the dissent author engage in responding to each other, that process is quite valuable.

It will inevitably strengthen, I think both opinions, but it will strengthen the majority opinion because it will force the majority author and the rest of the members of the court that are a part of the majority, to really analyze the analysis and the basis for their decision and you get a stronger opinion.

So I think it has that value.

The other real value in a dissent is that many times the dissent is kind of a preview of maybe where the law should go or where that author wants it to go.

And there are many, many instances when the law eventually has changed to be in the fashion in which the dissent had written it.

And so that can happen as well.

You see that both on our court, but there's certainly many examples from the US Supreme Court where that has been the case.

You can go all the way back to Justice Harlan's dissent in Plessy and Judge Waring's dissent in Briggs versus Elliott, which ended up being the precursor to Brown.

And much of Brown versus Board of Education came from Judge Waring's dissent.

So dissents can sometimes ultimately become the law, but they also have the real advantage of sometimes teeing up an issue for the legislature.

Maybe it's something that the legislature really does need to address, there needs to be a change in the law.

And the dissent can tee that up and bring that to the legislature's attention.

And I will say, just as Justice Anderson indicated, you can have very strong dissents, and we often do on our court when we do dissent, where it's a strong dissent, but it is not personal.

And you'll find that a dissent of an opinion does not necessarily mean the person doesn't like his colleague, his or her colleague, and they are not personal.

And we remain good friends and good colleagues despite the dissents that you sometimes see.

And so I do want to dispel that notion.

And part of the reason for that is, frankly, we strive, even in our dissents to be collegial.

We recognize that on occasion people can have different views of the law and we strive to be collegial because it's just so important that we do that.

So I think that's the real value in the dissent.

There's certainly some that will say, "Well, dissents can harm the court," because, again, of potential ill-will that is garnered by the dissents.

But again, I think that does not happen on our court.

And I think it does not happen on many courts.

There is real value though.

And I think those who dislike dissent, there is real value in the court speaking as one particularly on really, really controversial decisions.

And so again, we strive to do that, but it is expected on our court that you follow your own values, your own views, and your own heart.

And if you feel that the court is wrong, then a dissent is more than worth doing.

The last thing I would say about it, Justice Anderson, I think all of us, that said, strive to save our dissents for the really important matters, because there are many things you disagree with around the edges.

And I don't think that dissents should be written just for the sake of dissenting, just to be contrary.

And I don't think that happens on our court.

We reserve those for cases that are of the utmost importance and where the dissent might further the law.

So that's what I would say about dissents, Justice Anderson.

- Justice Moore, any thoughts on the dissent process, which of course was completely new to you when you showed up here?

- Yes.

(clears throat) Well I agree with everything that Justice Hudson indicated.

I had my first separate writing, the same law clerk that was handling the majority opinions' drafting, ended up working with me on the dissent.

And it was just a really fascinating process to see the evolution of the majority opinion and as Justice Hudson said, I think what I had to say, even though I was a little bit of a lone ranger on that one, I think may have improved the quality of the majority opinion and sent a signal, in that particular case, that somebody on the court was particularly concerned about a particular issue in that case.

I also really agree with the comment that Justice Hudson made, that a separate writing just for the sake of pontificating or academic sort of exercise is not necessarily the most productive use of a dissent.

We had, I think, agreement in over 80% of our cases last term, which I think is a indication of a collegial court.

And there is something to be said for the court speaking unanimously.

The moral authority of that I think is really important.

Justice Hudson talked about Brown.

Chief Justice Warren worked very hard in that case to get a unanimous court because of the significance of it.

And I think we work similarly hard on our cases to try to find areas of compromise in areas where we could have maybe some give and take.

And that happens more frequently than not.

- One quick war story.

The moderator gets to do this occasionally, so you have to sit there and listen to this.

But one quick war story is that when I joined the court in 2004, very early in that time there, I made a report to the court, as my colleagues often, as they do.

And we prepared to conference cases and my colleagues were being very nice to the new kid on the block, "Oh, this was a great report."

And, "We really appreciated the thoroughness of the bench memo and all the hard work you've done."

And then, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Every single one of them disagreed with me and I wound up writing a sole dissent.

So the chief assigned the majority opinion to somebody else and I had to explain why they were all wrong.

Well, anyway... (all chuckle) It is part of the process.

I should mention that Justice Moore is correct.

We had probably our highest percentage of unanimity in recent years.

It normally run 60 to 70%.

It did run higher than that than in recent years and I'm sure it's due to his collegial and warm and effective personality.

It's the only reason I can think of.

- Oh, right.

(laughs) The most famous story, of course, from United States Supreme Court, of members of the court who might disagree with each other, yet had a strong personal relationship are the late Justice Scalia and the late Justice Ginsburg, who were famously very good personal friends.

There was this great photograph of the two of them riding an elephant somewhere in India and we're perfectly willing to go hammer and tongs on issues that they disagreed with.

Well, let's talk a little bit about some of the other matters that the court is involved in.

You know, we have a seven-member court.

It started out as a three-member court.

For those of you history buffs, you may recall that.

If you didn't recall, you may recognize those first three members, then the first Chief Justice Lafayette Emmett, Lafayette, Minnesota, Isaac Atwater, who was also a member of the court, Atwater, Minnesota, and Charles Flandreau, Flandreau Park in New Ulm named for him, were important historic figures.

And over the years, we've gone to now, we were for a period of time, a nine-member court, now a seven-member court.

And in addition to opinions and issuing or listening to oral arguments, we also have administrative responsibilities, part that I don't think any of us fully understood when we joined the court.

Justice Hudson, can you talk off just briefly about that?

And then we're gonna go back to talk a little bit about the importance of the district court and the lawyers who appear in that district court.

But let's talk about the administrative responsibilities for a minute.

- You're absolutely right about that, Justice Anderson, in that one of the things that surprised me most coming from the court of appeals.

I think I intellectually knew that the supreme court justices had a number of administrative assignments as the judges do on the court of appeals.

But there are many, many more on the supreme court.

I did not realize the breadth of it.

But I think you have to keep in mind that as the court of last resort, we are responsible for the general practice of law and the administration of justice for the entire state.

And so as a result, we review all kinds of proposed changes to the rules, be that the rules of criminal procedure, the rules of civil procedure, the rules of civil appellate procedure.

Each of the justices is a liaison to one of the many, many rules committees and other committees that the court has from institutions as varied as the board of law examiners, with which Justice Anderson works as the liaison, to again, judges who work with the juvenile rules committees.

So it really is very broad and quite varied and our role is a substantive one.

We're there as liaisons, but we are there to make sure that the proposed rules and actions comport with the best running, if you will, of our judicial system.

Each justice is also a liaison to at least one, sometimes two, of the district courts.

And so my liaison responsibilities, for example, are to the sixth judicial district, which is Carlton County and up towards Duluth, that area, as well as the second judicial district, which is Ramsey County.

And so again, we all sit on a host of different committees and that does take up a good chunk of our time that is non-decisional.

So, yeah.

Thank you.

- So Justice Moore, talk a little bit about your administrative responsibilities and probably it's also worth noting that you're the liaison to Hennepin County, our largest, most complex, most complicated district court system in Minnesota, 62 district court judges in that district alone.

And um.

They have a lot going on there.

But talk a little bit about the administrative responsibilities.

And then we're gonna talk about the role of lawyers.

- Well, you're right, Justice Anderson, the fourth judicial district, which is Hennepin County, is our largest judicial district, around 62 judges, some other referees and other judicial officers, and I think our whole district court is around 290, 91, district court judges in the state of Minnesota.

So obviously a significant number of those are in Hennepin County, which is our busiest judicial district.

As a liaison to that district, I have to attend meetings and be involved in helping facilitate the filling of vacancies, reporting to the court on those issues.

I'm also liaison to some rules committees, the civil commitment rules and evidence rules.

I was assigned by the chief justice to be on the Minnesota Sentencing Guidelines Commission, which isn't really a liaison responsibility, but is a chief justice appointment.

And I also serve on the State Historical Society Board of Directors or the Supreme Court Historical Society Board of Directors, as well as the ADR or the Alternative Dispute Resolution Ethics Board.

So like most members of the court that come without an awareness of these responsibilities, it has been eye opening, in terms of the amount of time that the administrative duties of the court do take up and how important they are.

- The public may not fully understand.

We have 292 district court judges.

We have 19 court of appeals judges, and then there are seven members of the Minnesota Supreme Court.

But the bulk of our judicial work is done in the district courts and it's done working with lawyers who appear, not only in the district court, but of course in the supreme court, as well.

We'll decide approximately a hundred opinions a year.

The supreme court will, or court of appeals will issue about 2,500 opinions a year.

And depending on how you count it, and what particular matters you include, the district courts will be participants in or decide in some fashion, several hundred thousand, maybe as much as 800,000 or more decisions in the course of a year.

Justice Moore, let's start with you.

Talk about the role of lawyers, not only at the supreme court, but in the district court and how important that is and some of the concerns, maybe, that might be relevant to Greater Minnesota on the subject of lawyers and the number of lawyers available.

- Well Justice Anderson, our judicial system works only because of the people that are part of it.

Judges are obviously a visible part of it, but behind the scenes, we have the attorneys that appear before us, all the court staff court reporters, interpreters, court bailiffs, all the people that make the district run.

And as you mentioned, in outstate Minnesota, Greater Minnesota, there are concerns about the number of lawyers available to replace baby boomers retiring and other longterm pillars of the community that you know are looking at retirement as well.

I know when I was in Worthington, that was a concern of mine, that the bar in Nobles County changed dramatically in the 25 years I was there.

And I think it's just a reflection of some of the demographic changes that outstate Minnesota has faced, but notably in places like Worthington, Austin, Willmar, Rochester, there are hubs of population growth, the Greater Mankato area.

And so we really need to have lawyers to make those courthouses work.

It would be like if we centralized all our healthcare, in the Twin Cities area, obviously there's some specialty care that goes to bigger hospitals, but primary care ought to be provided locally.

And same thing with the district court.

Our district court has original jurisdiction over criminal, civil, civil probate, family courts cases, and we need to have lawyers to serve the public in those matters in all 87 or of our counties.

And so I've been sort of on a mission here to encourage young people in law school to consider, the young lawyers, I should say, to consider a clerkship in Greater Minnesota or an opportunity to learn a little bit about what life is like outside of the Twin Cities, Metro area.

And my law clerks that I convinced to come out to Worthington had great experiences.

And I know that there are awesome opportunities for law students in Greater Minnesota to become, not only lawyers, but really parts of their community.

That's what I stress, the importance of the legal profession to the communities in which those lawyers live can't be understated.

Lawyers get involved in all aspects of the community, from school boards to city councils, to Kiwanis and rotary clubs and really become leaders in the community.

And if you wanna have an impact as a lawyer, go to Greater Minnesota, you'll see it immediately.

- Justice Hudson, let's talk a little bit about the importance of lawyers.

And communities is a broad word.

It means, not just an organized municipality somewhere, but there are other ways in which a community can be viewed.

And the court has had some emphasis in recent years on providing more opportunities for service in lots of communities.

Maybe you can talk about that more generally.

Talk a little bit about the importance of lawyers, not only to our work at the court, but also in the district courts.

- Well certainly as it relates to the importance of lawyers practicing before our court, I think it's important for the public to remember that by and large, we are generalists on the supreme court, and we are a court of general jurisdiction, which simply means, we hear a wide range of cases.

And while all of us came to the court with a specialty practice area, an area of law that we are most familiar with, it would be impossible to have that level of familiarity with the wide range of cases that come to us.

On any particular calendar, you might have a tax law case, an environmental law case, and a criminal case, and a family case, a family law case, or maybe there's an insurance law involved.

And when you get into some of these very specialized areas, like environmental law, that can be a tough slog for the court, absent some specific background in that area.

And so we rely heavily on the expertise of the lawyers that appear before us to educate us about that particular, not only the legal issue that we have to decide, but that area of law in general, so that we're making the decisions we make, not in a vacuum, but understanding that area of law well enough to make an informed decision.

And so the lawyers play a key role at oral argument because that is also where we are testing the lawyers' positions and the lawyers' theories, but we're taking what I call sort of that deep dive, if you will, with these experts in this particular area, again, so that we can make an informed decision.

And so the lawyers are critical to the success of the supreme court and we rely on their integrity and their candor and their expertise in making the decisions that we need to make.

And so I can't stress their importance to the work that we do.

- What about communities, I'm thinking of communities of color, but also more generally, communities generally, who are underserved from the standpoint of having insufficient numbers of lawyers who might be participating in that work?

You can also argue that the public defenders need additional resources.

These have been priorities for the court.

Can you talk about that for a couple of minutes, Justice Hudson?

- Well, we have been reaching out to...

It is important that we see attorneys that represent, before us that represent all of our communities.

And the court has certainly made efforts, in that regard, to increase and support diversity in the practice of law in our law schools.

And have certainly made efforts to reach out, to encourage lawyers of color, I should say individuals of color to apply to law school, and when they do graduate, to be involved in all aspects of the practice.

And so it is as important that we see lawyers of color and other types of diversity within the practice of law as it is on the court itself.

And so we have certainly been supportive of all of those efforts of the various affinity bars and others as we try to strive to make the profession a more diverse one.

Those voices need to be heard.

One of the reasons that I eventually applied for the court of appeals position is, it became abundantly clear to me that while the law has had a significant impact over time on communities of color, we had very little say in the development of that law.

And so it seemed to me that that needed to change within Minnesota.

And that was one of my reasons for applying for the position on the court of appeals, was to be in that position of having some influence over how the law was developed, as opposed to just being a recipient, if you will, of the law.

And so those are, but those are ongoing efforts that we as a community need to pay attention to, because I think our judicial system is improved to the extent that different voices inform it and be they different genders, different abilities, different races, different ethnicities.

And so that is just something I think we, as a community, need to continue to strive for.

- So let's talk a little bit about how the public interacts with the court system and particularly with the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Justice Moore, can you talk a little bit about the public nature of our opinions and how the public can see or listen to what we're doing on a daily basis when we're having arguments and maybe give them some advice about how they can do that if they want to do so.

And we'll talk a little bit more broadly about outreach when we've covered that material.

Go ahead first.

- Well, the public has the ability to watch us, watch our cases online.

Our cases are livestreamed through the state court system website.

A few clicks will bring you to the supreme court page and they are livestreamed and they are archived.

If you are a real supreme court junkie, you can go back and review previous oral arguments that have been had.

I was actually kind of surprised by the number of lawyers that told me that they do that.

They actually go back and listen to oral arguments.

I was always kind of terrified to listen to my oral arguments, frankly.

But it's been really, I think, a good transparency thing for the court to have that.

Our opinions are issued on Wednesday mornings.

We publish our opinions.

There are no unpublished or non-precedental supreme court opinions.

They are issued by the court as a group, not as a panel, we don't break into panels of three, like the court of appeals does.

And we have a very transparent process of issuing those opinions.

They are published on the state court system website.

They are made available to the media, but to members of the public are...

If you set your alarm for 10 o'clock on Wednesday morning, you can log on and see what we've got to say in this week's cases, not only the opinions that we issue, but orders relating to attorney discipline matters, rules development, and then something called special term decisions, in other words, the decisions on what cases we're going to take and put on our calendar for upcoming sessions.

And so you can see when petitions for review have been granted or are denied, and that list is published as well.

And I think it's really enhanced the public's ability to know what the supreme court is doing, and to get a sense of how our decisions are made.

- To show you how things have changed, as the oldest member of this three justice panel here today, I can tell you that one of my first assignments working for the Erickson Law Firm in Fairmont in 1979, was to drive up to the Twin Cities to go to, there was no court of appeals at that time, to go to the supreme court or to go to the Hennepin County Clerk of Court to get copies of opinions, because, of course, that was the only way you could do it.

So I'll tell more stories about the horse and buggy days later.

Justice Hudson, talk a little bit about our outreach efforts to Minnesotans generally.

You've been with the court almost as long as I have.

You and I go back to the court of appeals as well.

We had some outreach opportunities there.

How do we interact with the public and maybe talk about our program of going to high schools and law schools.

- Yeah.

Thank you, Justice Anderson.

I think one of the most favorite things, my favorite thing that the court does is that outreach to the local high schools.

I think we all thoroughly enjoy that.

It gives us an opportunity get outside of the supreme court courtroom or our courtroom here at the judicial center.

But we had to suspend this during Covid, but typically what the court will do is, at least twice a year, in the fall and in the spring, we will visit a particular high school and we will go to that community, and it's usually a day and a half affair.

We'll come in the night before and we'll have dinner with local officials, with the mayor and school board, and just a whole range of individuals, and just talk to them about what the court does.

But it's a dinner and a time fellowship and an opportunity to spend time with members of the community, some students.

And then the next day, we will have a oral argument at that particular high school.

And usually it's the case that we've selected because we think it would be interesting for high school students.

And the attorneys come out for those oral arguments as well.

They are real, live oral arguments.

We've just (indistinct) everything from the judicial center, basically to that high school.

And we will hold oral arguments there and do a question and answer session with the students afterwards.

Typically, several justices will spend some time visiting classrooms afterwards to talk further about the work of the court and what we do.

We obviously can't get into the specifics of the argument itself because, again, they are live, real arguments and we will have to yet decide that case.

But it's an opportunity to really engage with students and faculty about the work of the court.

And it really is a fun time.

It's an enjoyable time.

It gives the people of Minnesota an opportunity to see the courts workings up close, to ask questions, to hear a real, live case.

They get to see and hear some of the best attorneys, in terms of oral advocacy.

And it really does give the public an opportunity to see the court up close.

And it's something that we all cherish and that we are so thrilled to be able to get back to, now that Covid has waned a bit.

I think we're scheduled to go to Shakopee in the fall, Shakopee High School.

We move these things around the state periodically.

And so we try to hit all of the 10 judicial districts at some point.

And it really is a wonderful opportunity.

Similarly, we also do outreach to the three local law schools.

We just had an oral argument at the University of Minnesota Law School a couple of weeks ago.

Not quite as big of a fanfare, in terms of the public dinner and all that, it's really just an argument at the law school.

But again, it's a part of our outreach to the legal profession and to young, to-be lawyers.

They, too, get an opportunity to see a real case being argued.

And we'll spend some time doing kind of a Q&A with the students afterwards and it's really a fun time.

- Justice Moore, I'm gonna give you about 15 seconds.

What's your concluding thought on the privilege of serving on the Minnesota Supreme Court?

- It's an incredible honor.

I really look forward to getting outstate, to bring the court to those communities and I urge people to watch what we do and read our opinions.

- I wanna thank my colleagues, Justice Hudson and Justice Moore, for joining me on this outreach opportunity to visit about the work of the court.

Article six, section one of the Minnesota Constitution says that the judicial power of the state is vested in the supreme court.

And then in such other courts as the legislature may establish.

It is the privilege of all of us who serve the court to serve the people of the state of Minnesota.

We're grateful for the opportunity to visit with you today.

We look forward to working with you in the years ahead.

Thank you.

- [Narrator] "Your Legislators" is made possible will by the Minnesota Corn Growers Association.

From developing best practices that help farmers better protect our natural resources to the latest innovations in corn-based plastics.

Minnesota corn farmers are proud to invest in third party research, leading to a more sustainable future for our local communities.

Minnesota Farmers Union, standing for agriculture, working for farmers.

On the web at mfu.org.

(upbeat music)