State v. Erickson
| Citation | 589 N.W.2d 481 |
| Decision Date | 04 March 1999 |
| Docket Number | No. C6-98-1236,C6-98-1236 |
| Parties | STATE of Minnesota, Respondent, v. Allen ERICKSON and Forrest Scott Verhoeff, Appellants. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Minnesota (US) |
Syllabus by the Court
The removal of judges provided for in Minn. R.Crim. P. 26.03, subd. 13(4), is a privilege that this court may revise or suspend John E. Mack, Mack & Daby, New London, for appellant.
when it is used in an abusive manner that affects the administration of justice.
Boyd Beccue, Kandiyohi County Attorney, Willmar, Michael Hatch, Robert A. Stanich, St. Paul, for respondent.
John M. Stuart, Minnesota State Public Defender, Lawrence Hammerling, Minneapolis, amicus curiae.
Heard, considered, and decided by the court en banc.
This case, before us on interlocutory appeal, involves the Kandiyohi County Attorney's Office's blanket exercise of Minn. R.Crim. P. 26.03, subd. 13(4), on substantially all of the county's criminal cases. The rule allows a defendant or prosecuting attorney to peremptorily remove a judge. Since 1994, the County Attorney's Office has filed notices to remove the Honorable John C. Lindstrom in a vast majority of criminal cases prosecuted by that office and assigned to Judge Lindstrom. This is a rare use of this rule and a case of first impression in Minnesota. We conclude that such blanket filings are an unwarranted use of Minn. R.Crim. P. 26.03, subd. 13(4), and constitute an abuse of this rule. We therefore reverse the lower courts and remand the cases to Judge Lindstrom.
In October 1997, appellant Allen Erickson was arrested and charged with several counts of gross misdemeanor driving while intoxicated in violation of Minn.Stat. § 169.121 (1998), and with one count of driving after suspension of his driver's license in violation of Minn.Stat. § 171.24 (1998). Appellant Forrest Scott Verhoeff was arrested in December 1997, and was charged with several counts of gross misdemeanor driving while intoxicated in violation of Minn.Stat. § 169.121, and with one count of driving after revocation of his driver's license in violation of Minn.Stat. § 171.24.
Both cases were prosecuted in Kandiyohi County by the Kandiyohi County Attorney's Office and both were assigned to Judge Lindstrom. The County Attorney's Office filed timely notices of removal against Judge Lindstrom pursuant to Minn. R.Crim. P. 26.03, subd. 13(4). In response, the appellants filed a joint motion to prohibit the removal of Judge Lindstrom. The basis of the appellants' motion was not only to contest the removals of Judge Lindstrom in their own cases, but also to challenge the County Attorney's Office's policy of removing Judge Lindstrom from nearly all criminal cases to which he was assigned.
The Kandiyohi County Attorney's Office began its official policy of routinely removing Judge Lindstrom from criminal cases in 1994. The practice resulted from the County Attorney's Office's dissatisfaction with Judge Lindstrom's ruling in a juvenile criminal case, which ruling was the result of a credibility determination. Shortly thereafter, the Willmar City Attorney's Office initiated the same blanket filing practice, and both offices have routinely removed Judge Lindstrom from 1994 to the present. Judge Lindstrom has served with distinction as a trial court judge since July 1, 1976. The issue of blanket filings arose only after Judge Lindstrom made an adverse ruling on the above juvenile case.
From January 1, 1994 to August 20, 1997, Judge Lindstrom was assigned to 254 felony and gross misdemeanor cases. The County Attorney's Office filed notices of removal in 161 of those cases, while the Willmar City Attorney did so in 27 cases. During that time period, only one other litigant removed Judge Lindstrom from a criminal case. Thus, Judge Lindstrom was removed from 188 out of 254 felony and gross misdemeanor cases over a 3-1/2 year period.
Similarly, from January 1, 1995 to August 20, 1997, Judge Lindstrom was assigned to 334 misdemeanor cases. The County Attorney's Office filed notices of removal in 73 of those cases, while the Willmar City Attorney did so in 167 cases. No other litigant removed Judge Lindstrom from a criminal case during that time period. Thus, Judge Lindstrom was removed from 240 of 334 misdemeanor cases during the 2-1/2 year period.
Concerned by this continuing practice, the appellants filed their motion objecting to the removal of Judge Lindstrom. The motion was heard before the chief judge of the Eighth Judicial District, the Honorable Bruce Christopherson. Judge Christopherson took judicial notice of additional statistics, stating that from May 20, 1998 through June 19, 1998, the County Attorney's Office removed Judge Lindstrom in five of the seven criminal cases to which he was assigned. Judge Christopherson expressed concern about the "long and complicated" history of the County Attorney's removal policy that formed the basis of the appellants' motion, and detailed prior attempts to deal with the abundant removal notices.
Shortly after the prosecutors began filing repeated notices to remove Judge Lindstrom from criminal cases, the Court Administrator of Kandiyohi County attempted to deal with the disruption caused by the notices by not assigning Judge Lindstrom to criminal cases. However, the Court Administrator ceased this policy after other litigants complained that the new policy allowed the County Attorney's Office, in essence, to remove two judges, since Judge Lindstrom was effectively removed by the Court Administrator's failure to assign him criminal cases, while the County Attorney's Office still retained the ability to remove the assigned judge pursuant to Minn. R.Crim. P. 26.03, subd. 13(4).
Judge Lindstrom himself objected to the repeated notices of removal filed by the County Attorney's Office. In 1995, Judge Lindstrom refused to remove himself from four cases after the County Attorney's Office filed notices of removal. The County Attorney filed petitions for writs of prohibition, which the court of appeals granted. The Court Administrator then implemented a new policy whereby litigants were not informed of the assigned judge until the time of the hearing at which the judge was to preside. In response to objections, the Court Administrator reversed this policy.
After thorough review of all of the law and facts surrounding this case, including court caseload records, Judge Christopherson denied the appellants' motion. He held that Minn. R.Crim. P. 26.03, subd. 13(4), was not unconstitutional either on its face or as applied by the Kandiyohi County Attorney's Office. While expressing hope that the notices to remove would be "used sparingly" in the future, Judge Christopherson cited judicial restraint in choosing not to implement sanctions against the County Attorney's Office for abuse of the rule.
The court of appeals denied the appellants' petition for discretionary review. We granted review in order to address the County Attorney's Office's repeated filing of removal notices against Judge Lindstrom pursuant to Minn. R.Crim. P. 26.03, subd. 13(4). There have been some previous uses of blanket removals by prosecutors in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, but those cases were resolved before reaching us. We granted review in this case because the impact of a blanket filing on any judge is an issue of statewide importance to the administration of justice.
We are not the first court to be confronted with an abuse of a removal rule. In State v. City Court of the City of Tucson, 150 Ariz. 99, 722 P.2d 267 (1986), the Arizona Supreme Court considered an abuse of a removal rule that allowed a city prosecutor to disqualify a judge peremptorily. Id. at 101, 722 P.2d at 269. The city prosecutor implemented an office policy requiring use of the rule to remove a magistrate from all driving under the influence cases. Id. at 100, 722 P.2d at 268. The city prosecutor candidly informed the magistrate that the removals were an attempt to "re-educate" her. Id. at 101, 722 P.2d at 269. The court held that the prosecutor's use of the rule was "an abuse of the rules and a threat to the independence and integrity of the judiciary which cannot be allowed." Id. at 102-03, 722 P.2d at 270-71. The court then stated that Id. at 104, 722 P.2d at 272 (internal citations omitted). The court then held that, as to future cases [I]f the City Prosecutor does not terminate his policy of peremptorily challenging [the judge] in all DWI cases, then we will be forced to suspend indefinitely the availability of [the rule] to the City Prosecutor until such time as we are satisfied that the rule is not being abused by the City Prosecutor or his deputies.
The Arizona Supreme Court's concerns were warranted, considering the broad impact of blanket filings, which affect not only the specific cases at issue, but also the cases of many of our other citizens that are pending at the same time. This is true particularly in greater Minnesota, where the judges needed to handle reassignments are farther apart. In Kandiyohi County, for example, there were 11,558 cases filed in 1998. When a judge is removed from a case, another judge must be assigned to the case, thereby affecting the caseload of both judges. Where, as in Kandiyohi County, only three judges are generally assigned to handle the continually increasing volume of cases, the efficient utilization of judicial resources is greatly impacted by blanket filings.
The ability of a litigant to remove a judge is an important principle and has a lengthy history in Minnesota. Under the common law there was no such right in general, though certain removal rights were established where actual conflicts of interests were...
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