Minnesota governor appoints two Supreme Court justices

ST. PAUL, Minn. (CN) — Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announced two appointments to the state’s Supreme Court Monday in preparation for the impending retirements of two longtime justices.

Walz, a Democrat, appointed Minnesota Court of Appeals Judge Theodora Gaïtas and Stearns County Chief Judge Sarah Hennesy to the state’s high court. The two will fill the seats left behind when Justices Margaret Chutich and G. Barry Anderson retire later this year.

Chutich, appointed in 2016 by then-Governor Mark Dayton, also a Democrat, will retire in May, and Anderson, appointed in 2004 by Republican Governor Tim Pawlenty, will follow in July.

The appointments return the court’s female majority, which lapsed in October when Chief Justice Lorie Gildea resigned. At that time, added Karl Procaccini to the court. In 1991, Minnesota’s top court was the first in the nation to be majority female.

Walz' administration and party were quick to draw connections between the appointments and ongoing controversies over women's rights. "As other state Supreme Courts move to take away women’s rights, I’m proud that Minnesota’s Supreme Court is once again a female majority," Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan wrote on X Monday.

The Minnesota DFL party took the opportunity to take shots at Walz and Flanagan's 2022 gubernatorial opponents in an Instagram post relating to the judicial appointments. "If Scott Jensen & Matt Birk were in the governor's office, they'd be chipping away at the pro-choice majority on our State Supreme Court," the post read. "Instead [Walz] and [Flanagan] are reinforcing it."

Gaïtas spent 15 years as an appellate public defender and was appointed by Dayton to Minneapolis’ Hennepin County District Court in 2018. Walz appointed her to the Court of Appeals in 2020.

Walz told the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he’d discussed the court’s needs with Chief Justice Natalie Hudson before choosing the two new justices, and she had emphasized the importance of adding a justice with experience on the Court of Appeals.

Walz and Hudson each praised Gaïtas’ qualifications on this point at Monday’s announcement. Hudson called Gaïtas and Hennesy “experienced, well-respected jurists who bring exceptional intellectual gifts and a deep commitment to serving the people of Minnesota.”

Hennesy was appointed to her current role by Dayton in 2012, and she previously practiced appellate law, trial litigation and public defense in Iowa. She also worked as a criminal defense attorney in the Beltway and as a staff lawyer at Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid, which provides representation to impoverished litigants around the state.

Former public defenders are underrepresented in state supreme courts; in 2021, only 7% of state justices were former public defenders, while over a third were former prosecutors, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

Hennesy cited her experience with Legal Aid as an influence on her view of the legal system. "I worked almost exclusively with women who were being abused when I was working at Legal Aid, as part of Stearns County's domestic violence court," she said at the announcement. "And so I have a pretty deep sense of how the legal system and how precedent impact folks who live at the margins of our society, and that does shape the way that I look at our legal system."

Gaïtas and Hennesy’s appointments along with sitting Justices Gordon Moore and Procaccini give Walz appointees a 4-3 majority on the court. Anderson’s retirement also means that the court will have no remaining Republican appointees; Democrats have held Minnesota’s governor’s mansion since Pawlenty left office in 2011.

The new justices do not need legislative approval. They will have to stand for election in 2026, but incumbents have historically enjoyed substantial advantages at the ballot box in Minnesota’s judicial elections. In Minnesota’s last contested Supreme Court election in 2020, incumbent Paul Thissen won 59% of the vote. Chutich defeated the same opponent, since-suspended attorney Michelle MacDonald, in 2018 with 55.9% of the vote.

It’s unlikely that Walz will have another chance to appoint a new Supreme Court Justice. Minnesota enforces a mandatory judge retirement age of 70, but the court’s oldest member, Hudson, will reach that age just as Walz’ term expires in January.

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