Moving Out of District Does Not Automatically Disqualify District Court Judge From Continuing to Serve

State v. Irby, Minn.S.t., 7/2/2014.  For three months back in 2009, Hennepin District Court Judge Patricia Kerr Karasov was not living in Hennepin County, on obligation (or so it seemed) required of her in order to serve as a judge.  When the Supreme Court got wind of this, the court sanctioned her with a six month suspension without pay.  When Mr. Irby got wind of this he commenced this post conviction petition.  He said that under both the Minnesota Constitution and the corresponding enabling legislation Judge Karasov had forfeited her judgeship so she had no business presiding over his criminal case.  He said that he should get a new trial.

As should everyone else whose cases Judge Karasov attended to following the alleged forfeiture of her judicial office.  Or at least, that has to be have been in the back of the minds of the five justices – Wright taking no part and Page dissenting – in rejecting Mr. Irby’s claim.

Here’s the constitutional provision that’s in play: 

“[e]ach judge of the district court in any district shall be a resident of that district at the time of his selection and during his continuance in office.

The enabling statute, Minn. Stat. § 351.02(4) says that every office shall become vacant on “the incumbent’s ceasing to be an inhabitant of the state, or, if the office is local, of the district, county or city for which the incumbent was elected or appointed, or within which the duties of the office are required to be discharged.”  The court of appeals rejected Mr. Irby’s claim, reasoning that because the supreme court had only suspended Judge Karasov she hadn’t really lost her job after all.  Justice G. Barry Anderson – Stras concurred only in the result – affirmed the court of appeals but on totally (and somewhat strained) grounds.

The judge did not move out of the state so it’s the interpretation of only the second half of the statute which deals with “local” offices that’s going to let Mr. Irby prevail.  If the judgeship is “local” then Mr. Irby (and everyone following him) gets a new trial.  (Justice Anderson rather quickly, indeed relegated it to a footnote, tosses aside the constitutional provision, saying that it is both not self executing and leaves room for less severe sanctions for its violation, like a suspension without pay.)  Justice Anderson concludes that a judgeship is a statewide and not a  local office.  Judges are state employees, they interpret and apply state law, they issue orders that are binding across the state, and they can be assigned to serve in any judicial district throughout the state by operation of another statute, Minn.Stat. 2.724, Subd. 1.  (This statute actually says that a judge assigned to preside in a district other than her own can appeal that assignment to the full supreme court.  The statute also does not operate “statewide.”  Rather, no assignment can send a judge packing more than fifty miles away and no judge can be sent packing for more than fifteen working days in any twelve month period without the judge’s say so.  So whatever Justice Anderson may think “statewide” means, it does mean that Judge Karasov could not be sent to Crookston.) 

The court has also said that a seat in the legislature is a “state office” and not a local one.  Court of Appeals judges who are either appointed or elected from a particular congressional district are state offices.  Finally, to adopt Mr. Irby’s construction of the statute – that it is self executing – would offend separation of powers doctrine because it would allow the legislature to have supremacy over judicial discipline through a self-executing statute.  Enough said, although one wonders just how long a judge could live at her lake home “up north” and still be authorized to serve as a judge back in the cities.

Justice Stras took umbrage with the majority’s (rather vague) suggestion that the court’s disciplinary authority over judges was exclusive.  He thought that such power was concurrent with the legislature.

Justice Page dissented, saying that when Judge Karasov abandoned her residence within Hennepin County she no longer met the constitutional qualifications to remain in office.  That is, when she moved out of the district she was no longer a “resident of that district” and automatically forfeited her robes.