Hon. Denise D. Reilly: A Calling For Justice

Higher Callings Podcast

Interview of Hon. Denise D. Reilly

Recorded September 6, 2021

Host: Donald R. Frederico 

Don: Denise Reilly is a judge on the Minnesota Court of Appeals. As a religion major in college, her passion for justice instilled in her a calling to become a lawyer. While raising a young family, she attended law school. She then served as a law clerk to a federal district judge, then joined a large private law firm, and later became a federal prosecutor.

Denise then heard another calling, this time to become a judge. She applied and was appointed to the state district court bench, and worked for seven years as a judge in Juvenile Court, work that she still considers to be the most important of her career.

In 2009, Denise was selected to serve as one member of the three-judge panel to preside over the election dispute which resulted in Al Franken’s election to the United States Senate.

Denise’s work on the bench is just one way in which she has dedicated herself to the public interest. She also has made important contributions to the fight against illegal sex trafficking, serves on the board of the Division of Indian Works, and taught trial practice to law students.  Denise has received several awards and recognitions for her outstanding work on the bench and her service to her community.

An exemplary career and lifetime of service that all began when a college undergraduate heard a Higher Calling.

Denise: I was impressed because our system in Minnesota depends upon citizen volunteers to act as election judges. They go through hours of training and then they devote a couple of days to making sure that the right people vote and that the ballots are counted properly.

And so it was just a remarkable experience for me working with these two wonderful judges who became really dear friends, and fabulous law clerks, great lawyering, and kind of the trial of a lifetime.

Don: I'm Don Frederico, and this is Higher Callings.

This morning. I'm with my college friend, Judge Denise Reilly from Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Good morning, Denise. How are you today?

Denise: I'm good. Good morning, Don. Good to hear you and see you.

Don: Likewise. I've really enjoyed spending time with you to prepare for this interview and seeing also my old friend, Kevin, your husband, when we talked the other day. So it's just great to reconnect and to hear about your career and the many really exciting things and important things you've done over the years.

I thought we would start just by talking a little bit about your background, you know, where did you grow up? What was your childhood like? What were some of your important childhood influences?

Denise: Well, I grew up mostly in Minnesota. My dad was with General Mills, and their general offices are here. But as a little girl, we were transferred a lot, or he was transferred a lot. So I lived in Lincoln, Nebraska, Jacksonville, Florida, always coming back to the Twin Cities area. And then in high school, we moved to Japan.

And when I look back on my childhood, I was so blessed. I won the baby lottery, being born into the family I was born into. It was large and extended, and although my dad's parents had both died by the time I could have remembered them, I was very, very close to my mom's parents who were farmers and children of immigrants from Norway. They had a farm up in North Dakota. I would spend summers with them.

One of my earliest memories is from when we lived in Lincoln and I was probably two-and-a-half years old. And if anyone has ever been on the Prairie and seen a thunderstorm roll in, you will know what I'm talking about. It fills the western sky. You can see the lightning in the distance, these really tall thunderheads. And I was scared as a little girl. And so I remember my dad picking me up and we'd stand inside by the back door and watch what I called the Thumper come. And I felt so safe. And so, that is one of my foundational memories from living in Lincoln.

When I was five years old, we moved to Jacksonville, Florida. And at that time they did not have public kindergarten. So I went to Mrs. Brooks' kindergarten. I graduated with a diploma, Bachelor of Rhymes, which I have in my chambers at work.

And I remember we had, my mom had help. My dad traveled a lot and my mom had three boys under the age of three.I was the oldest child. So I was in school, but she had these really active little boys.

Don: She was a stay-at-home mom?

Denise: She was a stay-at-home mom. It's funny, she was a registered nurse, and she regrets, now in her nineties, that she didn't go back to work at least part-time. She thinks it would have been better for the family.

But in any event, I remember we had household help, an African-American maid. Her name was Minnie. And sometimes she would take us out on the bus, public transportation. And it was still Jim Crow in the South and segregation.

And I remember that Minnie would deposit us in the front of the bus and go to the back. And we did not understand what was going on. And we'd say "Minnie, sit with us." "No." "Well let's sit with you." "No."

And then I remember when she would take us to the park, there were colored restrooms and white restrooms, and drinking fountains too. And the colored restrooms would be locked and the drinking fountains didn't have water. And if Minnie needed to go to the bathroom, she would just squat in the vestibule. And I did not understand it at all, but as I grew up, I began to understand it. But those are some of my memories of Jacksonville, Florida.

Don: Where did you go from there? Is that when you went back to Minnesota?

Denise: Then we came back to Minnesota, and then, when I was a sophomore in high school, my dad was transferred to Japan. So we moved to Tokyo, and I went from living on the outskirts of Minneapolis, it was still very rural, lots of farms around us, to living in the most densely populated country or city in the world. And it was wonderful. I am so grateful that we had that experience of living in another culture that was very, very different from the European culture that I was familiar with.

Don: You moved there, it must've been the late 1960s or early 1970s?

Denise: 1969. Yup. And then I graduated from high school in '71, and then went to our alma mater, the College of Wooster, which is where I met you.

Don: Right, right. Yeah. I met you your sophomore year. You were, you and Kevin were both a year ahead of me at college.

Denise: Yup.

Don: Well, and then I know you had some significant influences at the college. You majored in religion, as I recall.

Denise: I did. I majored in religion in large part because I really liked professor J. Arthur Baird, who was a New Testament scholar.

So I met Kevin in college and, we've now been married 46 years. We got married five days after graduation, which is hard to believe. And we have two sons. And we chose to live in Minneapolis when our oldest son Sean came along because extended family was so important to me, having moved around so much. And yet knowing the love of my extended family, we wanted our boys to have that.

And so we settled in Minneapolis and it was in college that I felt or heard a calling to become a lawyer. Don, you'll remember . . .

Don: Yeah, tell me about that. How did that happen?

Denise: So you'll remember that one of Wooster's claims to fame is the Independent Study that you have to do. And I did my Independent Study on Leviticus 25, which doesn't sound very exciting, but it's the Jubilee Year, and it was every 50 years.

So the sabbath is the seventh day, sabbath year would be the seventh year in a cycle. So then at 49, you'd have seven sabbath years in that cycle. And then they topped it off with the Jubilee Year. And during the Jubilee Year, all slaves were to be set free, all debts forgiven, and really it leveled the playing ground for Israel.

I don't know if they ever accomplished that or did it, or if it was more aspirational in its thought. But anyway, it really fascinated me, that idea of justice, that everyone, you're not bound by mistakes your ancestors made and you were given a fresh start. And so in doing that, I started thinking about justice. And at the time the logical next step seemed to be law school. And I wanted to do justice.

And maybe you remember the days, Don, we were reading William Stringfellow and talking about systems justice and all kinds of things like that.

Don: I sure do. I mean, William Stringfellow came to campus and spent a few weeks on campus. He was a lawyer who, as I recall, represented one of the Berrigans, or if not represented one of the Berrigans, at least harbored him for a while in his home, during the anti-war movement, and also wrote some important books, one that really influenced me. I still have a copy of it here at home. I'm not sure I'm in the same place I was when I read it. But no, he influenced me too in thinking about becoming a lawyer. So that's interesting. I didn't know that he was one of your strong influences as well.

The thinking about justice and Leviticus, that would have been your senior year. So is that when you really started seriously thinking about going into law?

Denise: It is.

Don: I know Dr. Baird also talked a lot about justice and mercy. I think you and I may have been in the same New Testament class that he taught. He was brilliant. I think anybody who studied under him recognized his brilliance and the energy he brought to the topic and his passion for it. How did that influence you as well? Did that maybe pave the way for your thinking about going into law?

Denise: I think it did. And you and I, when we were talking before this recording, talked about, there are four points to his diagram of justice, and there was mercy and love and wrath, and I forget what the other component is at this point.

Don: I do too.

Denise: I'm glad to hear that. It's not just me. [laughter]

Don: Sorry Dr. Baird.

Denise: I think about later on when I became a judge and the qualities that I looked for in a judge when I was a lawyer appearing in front of judges, but also the qualities that I want to bring as a judge, to the bench and the people who appear in front of me.

And certainly there has to be accountability for some actions. You take into account public safety, especially when you're dealing with crimes against people. But there also has to be some mercy in there too. And so it's, um, there's a tension in justice and I think he was the first one who helped me to start thinking about that.

Don: Good. Now, when you started thinking about becoming a lawyer, you weren't thinking about becoming a judge where you?

Denise: No, not at all.

Don: What were you thinking? Why did you want to be a lawyer? What kind of law did you think you would practice?

Denise: I really didn't know. I didn't know many lawyers, didn't have any lawyers in my family. And so I wanted to do good, whatever that meant. And I didn't know exactly. I thought maybe I'd do nonprofit work, which in some ways I've ended up doing as a judge [laughs]. But, so I went to law school and, for me, I had Sean, our oldest son, he was 18 months old when I started. And then I had another son right before finals of second year.

And, and for me, I just wanted to get through law school. I loved law school. It was challenging. It was my time to just have adult time away from nursing and changing diapers and all of that. I figured out that I always did my reading. I was in a small group study group, and then I crammed for finals.

And back in those days, there was just one final was the only test that you had for a course. And I did quite well. And then I heard people talk about it's really cool to clerk for a judge after law school. Well, I didn't even know what a clerk was, but I thought, well, if people are saying that, then I'll apply.

And I applied to the federal district court. Why I did that I don't know, because I never thought I'd be a trial lawyer, let alone a district court judge. And Bob Renner hired me as a clerk for two years and he was just an amazing mentor to me. Really took me under his wing. He was like a father to me, watched out for me. And I had two years watching him, how he thought, how he worked, how he conducted himself in the courtroom.

And so it was during that time when I never imagined that I would want to spend any time in the courtroom. I didn't spend much energy on trial practice or criminal law or anything, but I fell in love with the courtroom.

Judge Renner was the judge who was, he tried cases. "You can't settle it? Fine. Well, let's try it." And so for two years, I watched him deal with juries and lawyers and defendants and civil litigators. And it was a wonderful, wonderful experience.

And here's a short story about Judge Renner. He was really a person, a common person. There's a mentally ill woman who came to the clerk's office. And she thought that the FBI or someone had stolen her children and she would not leave them alone, the clerks. And so someone came and told Judge Renner about it. And he said, "Fine. I'll put my robe on. You bring her into my courtroom."

And so she comes into his courtroom, stands at the podium. He takes the bench. We gavel him in. And he says, "What's happening Ma'am?" And so she starts rambling on very, very incoherently. And it's within five minutes, he had her talking about her purse. I don't know how he did it. And she was, " Well thank you for helping me. Thank you for listening me." And she left happy.

Don: Oh, that's really, that's extraordinary.

Denise: Yeah. Don, you've been around some federal judges, and it's hard to imagine . . .

Don: I did a one-year clerkship for a federal district judge. And, that was probably a little before your clerkship or around the same time. And I just remember we had all sorts of complaints by obviously mentally ill people. But I can't remember a time when a judge went out of his way to actually bring the person in the courtroom and connect with them and recognize their humanity the way your judge did. So that's a wonderful story.

What did you do after your clerkship Denise?

Denise: So once again, not having lawyers in my family or a lawyer friends, I heard that the next thing I should do would be to go to a large firm, which is what I did.

Don: It's the path of least resistance for many people coming out of law school.

Denise: It sure is. And so, I started out in the real estate department because I had two little boys at home and I couldn't imagine how I would balance litigation with having these two boys at home.

And it just wasn't for me. I was miserable, even though I was working on huge real estate deals, it just did not feed my soul. And, so, at the end of a year, I asked to transfer into the litigation department, and I did. And once again, this is where I just feel so lucky. So blessed. I ended up working with Bob Sheran.

I knew nothing about Bob Sheran. I just thought he was an older partner at the firm I was at. It was only after a little while that I realized he was the former Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Once again, incredibly humble, humble man. And I worked on really interesting cases with him.

I had the fortune of having two amazing mentors, and it makes all the difference in the trajectory of your career, I think. And I tell any young lawyer who asked, I said, "You look around and you see what lawyers or which lawyers you really admire. You hitch your wagon to them and learn all you can from them.

Don: Now, at some point, you had a great mentor. You had a good experience at your law firm. But at some point you still weren't quite satisfied and you decided to do something different.

Can you tell us about your next step?

Denise: I did. So, I like money, but it's not my motivating factor. And I really, really missed the courtroom in ways that I didn't understand that I would. And so I determined or hoped that I could move to the U.S. Attorney's office, where I would be in court a lot and would run my own cases.

And so I applied and miraculously, in some ways, was accepted there and went immediately into the criminal division, which as I said earlier, I didn't pay any attention to criminal law when I was in law school.

Don: And did you handle any criminal cases in private practice?

Denise: No. Uh-uh. It was all civil litigation.

Don: You said you missed the courtroom. I take it that was because you were handling commercial cases and a lot of those cases just never went to trial.

Denise: There's a lot of discovery.

Don: Yeah. I know the feeling.

Denise: Litigators are not trial lawyers necessarily.

Don: Right. Too little of it in private practice. You can be behind the scenes doing pre-trial discovery and not getting into the courtroom, especially nowadays, but even back then.

So you went into the U.S. Attorney's office. You were in the criminal division. What, was there any particular types of crimes that you were assigned to?

Denise: I did everything my first year. I did counterfeit money. You know, you can put it in an old coffee can with coffee grounds to age it. I didn't know that. I did bank robberies. I did all kinds of things.

And then I was tapped to, when I was new there, to second chair one of the biggest drug cases that our state had ever seen with John Hopeman, who was a very good prosecutor. And that was just such a great experience for me, to be able to watch a seasoned prosecutor. We had great agents from DEA and the FBI and IRS, CID, and, it's such a team effort.

Don: Now, you became chief of the firearms and narcotics section.

Denise: And money laundering. I did. Yep.

Don: How did the experience in the U.S. Attorney's office kind of shape your thinking about the law, shape your thinking about the court system, and influence you going forward?

Denise: Well for me, as a prosecutor, and I think it's different being a state prosecutor than a federal prosecutor, because I didn't charge anyone unless I had the evidence. Not just probable cause evidence, but beyond a reasonable doubt.

And I realized that state prosecutors are often having to charge more, I don't want to say reactionary crimes, but someone's been raped or someone's been murdered or, and you have to act more swiftly than we needed to act in the U.S. Attorney's office. So I would say, I didn't charge someone, I did not bring the full force of the government against someone, unless I thought they had done something that was really illegal, and I had the evidence to convict them beyond a reasonable doubt.

So the other, one of the other things I learned at the U.S. Attorney's office, was the importance of the Bill of Rights, in particular, the fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments. And I liked being at the U. S. Attorney's office because I was in charge of investigations. And I would tell, I would counsel or advise law enforcement on what they could or could not do. And I wanted to make sure that we didn't violate the defendant's constitutional rights. That was really important to me.

And then when I tried a case, it was important to me that I didn't create any error. If I got a conviction, I'd always think, "Oh, is there a mistake? Did I do something wrong?" And of course you do because it's the practice of law.

Funny story is I did violate someone's Sixth Amendment rights. They're called Doyle rights. It's a U.S. Supreme Court case. And I didn't realize it until after the trial was over. And I looked and I thought, "Oh shoot, that's a good appeal issue."

And so I read all the Doyle cases I could from the Eighth Circuit and noticed that if you went to the Eighth Circuit and argued as a prosecutor in front of them that you didn't violate the Doyle rights, your name would be in the opinion as someone who did violate someone's rights. And so I got up and I was the appellee or respondent. And I said, " I made a huge mistake, your Honors. I'm sorry, but it's harmless beyond a reasonable doubt." And one of the judges looked over his half-moon glasses and said, "Well, Ms. Reilly, that's why it's called the practice of law." And I thought, "I think I'm going to be okay."

Don: You keep practicing until you get it right.

Denise: Right. You never get it right. Or a hundred percent.

Don: So the court agreed it was harmless error. And just for any non-lawyers listening to this, you know, you can make a mistake as a prosecutor or as a private lawyer, and then when you go up on appeal, if the court finds that "Yeah, you were wrong, but it didn't really affect the outcome," that's called "harmless error" and the verdict will stand.

So, after your eight-plus years in the U.S. Attorney's office, that's when you became a judge, right?

Denise: It is. And I would say there have been two times in my life where I've really felt a calling. "Vocation" is a really important word and concept to me, which is that you hear your calling, you have God-given gifts, and you use them to the benefit of the world. First time was when I had heard a calling to go to law school.

And then, at the U.S. Attorney's office, I tried a lot of cases and I was ready for a new challenge. And I went on a walk one day and honestly had this real stirring in my heart to think about becoming a judge. And I had never considered becoming a state district court judge. But in Minnesota, we're quite proud of our non-partisan judicial appointment process.

And I had not been politically active when I was at the U.S. Attorney's office. We were under the Hatch Act, so that we couldn't be politically active. And in any event, I was really busy between work and raising a family to be active in that way. And so I applied and, lo and behold, I was appointed by Arne Carlson.

Don: And the court you were appointed to was the criminal court?

Denise: No. It was a court of general jurisdiction. So we have a unified court. I know that many states have like municipal judges and county court judges and justices of the peace, and common pleas, I'm just not sure what all. But, so I had general jurisdiction and I heard everything from speeding tickets to first degree murder cases, multimillion dollar medical malpractice suits, big, big business disputes.

When I was in district court, I presided over all of the Medtronic lead cases that were in state court. So it's just, it was a wide, wide range of cases.

Don: You moved at some point from that court to the juvenile court, right?

Denise: So in the district I was in, you had to go to specialty court, and that was family court where divorces and things like that were heard, probate, mental health, or juvenile court. And I chose juvenile court, had never done anything in the juvenile area, but had a real heart for children and their families. And so it was supposed to be a two-year rotation, but I ended up staying seven years, and it's probably some of the most important work I ever did as a judge.

Don: Why do you say that?

Denise: Because if you can influence the trajectory of a child's life early on, it changes the world. And, I saw so many really heart-rending and sad things happen to kids, and I felt bad for their parents because there, it was not unusual to have a fourth generation of a family coming through child protection.

And, our probation department did a study. Red Wing is where the worst offenders, juvenile male offenders go. And we did a study of the juvenile male offenders from our county that were in Red Wing. And I think it was at least 92% of them had been children in child protection cases. And the other seven or eight percent probably should have been.

Don: What kinds of situations did you see as a judge in the juvenile court, Denise?

Denise: Okay. So child protection cases are when the government gets involved in a family's life, either because the children have been neglected or abused or abandoned, or they've really suffered significant trauma.

And you try to work to keep the family together. But if the parents are uncooperative or unwilling, then the children get removed. And you hope to be able to place the children with family, but if you can't they go into, they go into foster care, but hopefully with family. If not, then they go to foster homes.

And then you work, you put a case plan into place, working with social services, the parents and their attorneys, the county attorney. And children all have guardians ad litem who watch out for the best interest of the child. And you put together a case plan to address, typically it's chemical health issues, mental health issues, domestic violence, were the main issues that I saw, and abuse.

Don: And were there other types of cases? I think you mentioned another aspect of the court's work.

Denise: So then delinquency cases are when young, when kids commit crimes. And so that was more criminal area. But there's a lot of overlap.

Don: And you had some experience with criminal law in a very different type of setting in the U.S. Attorney's office.

What, um, what kind of values? I mean, I could, I could imagine the work in the juvenile court could be emotionally very challenging and draining for a judge. I mean, you're seeing these very difficult cases day after day after day, and you did that for a number of years.

Denise: Well, and Don, you know that in law school, we didn't take classes on what's the best interest of the child. And it probably depends upon the child.

So I had been in juvenile court maybe less than half a year, and both our boys were in college at that point. And I would come home and tell Kevin every night, every single case I'd go through. And it's like a parade of horrors, horrible things happening to kids, kids doing terrible things.

And finally, after about a month of it, Kevin said to me, "You cannot come home and tell me about your day or I'm gonna need therapy." And I thought, "I have got to learn how to deal with this in a more healthy way." And so at that point, I got a spiritual director, who happens to be a wonderful Roman Catholic nun.

And I, one of the things that she's helped me practice is to be fully there in the moment, make the best decision I can, and move on.

Don: Do you still have that spiritual director?

Denise: I do. I've had her for over 20 years.

Don: That's really fascinating. And, and I know you, when you were a child, you were in the Catholic church for some period of time, but you you're not a Roman Catholic today.

Denise: No. I have a lot of respect. I've gone on retreats with the Benedictines and listen to a Jesuit podcast every morning, and read Richard Rohr, who's a Franciscan. But no, we're at the Episcopal church now.

Don: So how did the spiritual director help get you through these very difficult . . . .

You know, you took on a very difficult assignment working in that court, and I know you were also the presiding judge for a couple of years. You didn't have to do that. You could have stayed in private practice. You could have stayed in the U.S.Attorney's office. You could have stayed in the court of general jurisdiction.

What motivated you to stay in the juvenile court as long as you did and how did the spiritual direction help get you through?

Denise: So I've, as I said earlier, I thought it was some of the most important work that I did, because I think I did change the trajectory of, or helped to change the trajectory of some of these children's lives, and their parents' lives also.

And I remember there was a time when I had to make a really hard decision about where a family of seven children should go and what should happen. And Joanne is the name of my spiritual director. She said, "Denise, you told me about one of your earliest memories, which was your dad holding you and you feeling safe." And she said, "When you're sitting on the bench, remember that feeling, and remember that God's, you're sitting in God's loving arms, and do the best you can with what you know." And so that image has stayed with me, especially when I've had to make hard decisions about people's lives. So that would be one of the ways.

Don: So from that court, well you were there until 2004. I'm looking at your bio.

Denise: Yeah, 2000 and, I went back January of 2005.

Don: Oh, okay. Yeah. So you went back to the same court you had started at, then you were doing general civil and adult criminal cases.

Denise: Yes.

Don: And you were there for about eight more years is as I understand it.

And then, while you were there, while you were in that court, you ended up with a very interesting case that was very highly publicized. And that was the case involving the election of Al Franken to the U.S. Senate. I don't want to ask you about the merits of the case or anything like that, but I do want to hear, maybe you could just explain how you got appointed to that three-judge panel and what that experience was like for you.

Denise: So, the election was really close at the point that it was going to be certified. Norm Coleman was ahead by 200-some votes, and when an election is that close, there's an automatic recount. And so first it went through the canvassing board and they looked at ballots. For instance, someone voted for lizard people. I mean, how do you count that? So there are kind of these screwball things.

But then when it got, so then they were ready to certify it. And then it was, under our Minnesota constitution, goes through a three-judge panel. The three judges are appointed by the Supreme Court. So, there are 300-some district court judges in the state of Minnesota. And the justices are familiar with the work of a lot of those judges and they want, wanted a panel that was, the three members were appointed by different governors. Because the public thinks that whoever appoints you, you're that political party. When in reality, I've been appointed by both a Republican and a Democratic governor, because as I said, it's merit selection for judges in Minnesota.

They wanted gender diversity and they wanted geographical diversity. And so I, and they wanted judges who were going to tee it up as best as possible so that they, when it got up to the Supreme Court, it would be in as neat a package as possible. And they also wanted judges, I say this because I've had a number of the justices who were friends tell me what they were looking for, and they didn't want any prima donnas. They, it was really important that we were seen as the three-judge panel.

Don: You needed credibility as a panel.

Denise: Credibility, and a lack of ego. And so, I was involved . . .

Don: Denise, just to put this in a temporal context, this was the November, 2008 election. And I imagine the panel was appointed in either late 2008 or early 2009.

Denise: I got the call on January of 2009 from, I think it was from Alan Page, who was the most senior justice on the court. And, I was really flabbergasted. I had, I honestly had no idea I'd be getting a call like that.

I didn't know who my two colleagues would be. And so I found out that it was Liz Hayden from St. Cloud and Kurt Marben from Thief River Falls, which is almost to the Canadian border. And I knew Liz, but I didn't know Kurt. And so the three of us met to look at the courtroom. And Kurt just looked like a baby. I thought he was one of the administrative clerks and it turns out he's going to be my colleague.

And, we had to figure out how we were going to do the presiding, how we were going to conduct it. We had to decide whether or not there'd be cameras in the courtroom, which I had never been a fan of, but decided that it was important for transparency purposes and credibility that if anyone wanted to watch, they could see what was going on in court and hear the testimony for themselves.

The case centered on absentee ballots, and the legislature had set out statutes on how to count those. And so, it was a steep learning curve to come up to speed on the law about absentee ballots and about how voting works in Minnesota.

And my takeaways are that there were maybe, I think, a handful of ballots that shouldn't have been counted during that election out of hundreds of thousands of ballots that were cast. And it was typically people who had been felons and thought that their civil rights were restored. So there was not intentional voter fraud. It was more inadvertent. Didn't know where they stood as far as could they vote or not vote.

I was impressed because the, our system in Minnesota depends upon citizen volunteers to act as election judges. They go through hours of training and then they devote a couple of days to making sure that the right people vote and that the ballots are counted properly. And so it was just a remarkable experience for me working with these two wonderful judges who became really dear friends, and fabulous law clerks, great lawyering, and kind of the trial of a lifetime.

Don: Yeah. I can imagine. How, remind me, that trial went on quite a long time. How long did it take?

Denise: So, if we started trial at the end of January, we put out our order on what absentee ballots would be opened on April 15th, and then the Secretary of State, we all assembled in the Supreme Court courtroom, and the Secretary of State and his designees open the ballots and the lawyers for each side watched as the, they were unsealed and then counted. And it was quite a day. So, then we certified the count in favor of Al Franken. He ended up with about a hundred more votes, maybe more, I can't remember the exact number, than Norm.

Don: I don't remember, was that appealed?

Denise: Yeah, to the Minnesota Supreme Court. And then they had their decision out by the end of June, which to lay people seems like a long time, but to those of us in the system, that's like turning the Titanic on a dime.

Don: Well, not only is it very fast, but it's very fast in a very closely watched, important case. And, that's really remarkable that they were able to do that. And of course, Al Franken was seated as a Senator from Minnesota, and was there for quite a number of years, until unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your point of view, he lost, he lost his seat.

Denise, let's talk about a few other issues that I'm really curious about. One is, I know you, at some point your career became, developed some expertise in the area of human trafficking. And you've actually gone to foreign countries quite far away to talk about human trafficking. Can you describe that experience a little bit? What exactly is human trafficking, and how did you develop the expertise in that area of law?

Denise: So, I did have the fortune of going with DOJ-sponsored groups to Bangkok, Costa Rica and Sri Lanka. And my, what I talked about was child victims and witnesses and how we deal with them in Minnesota. And that expertise would have come out of my time in juvenile court. And Minnesota was one of the first states to develop protocols on how to interview children.

And so, really human trafficking is slavery. It's current day slavery. And there can be domestic labor trafficking and there can be sex trafficking.

And so then, when I came back to Minnesota, I looked more at sex trafficking. And it's been such an evolution in the years that I've been on the bench. So starting in '97, from really criminalizing the prostitutes to the emphasis now on criminalizing the behavior by the customers. And in Minnesota, for instance, there's a lot of sex trafficking that goes on during fishing and hunting opener in more rural areas. And girls and young women are brought in and moved around for that.

We're wondering, we think that the Superbowl changed everything in the state of Minnesota with regard to human trafficking, unfortunately.

Don: How so? How did that happen?

Denise: A lot of, apparently a lot of men are looking for sex when they go to these sporting events. And so people get trafficked in for that. And, it's changed also in this way. When I first started out, the pimps or the promoters would pick up girls. They just have like radar for vulnerable girls and boys too.

Don: And these were underage girls primarily?

Denise: Yup. They pick them up on the bus or at bus stops or in malls. Or runaways. And so for instance, there are a lot of LGBTQ youth whose families have disowned them and they end up looking for places to stay and they often will end up in the sex trade. So you have that. But now the recruiting is done more through technology. And I've had a number of cases sitting on the appellate court where they've set up sting operations for men who are saying that they are going to love and take care of these young people forever, and they set up meetings. So that's another thing that's changed.

And then frankly, there's some discussion among women on, do women have the agency over their own bodies to become sex workers if they want to? Is it even bad? My experience with what the cases that I see in court is that they're very vulnerable people who are the sex workers and it's not through, they didn't grow up wanting to be a sex worker.

Don: It's a really horrifying thing. And yet I don't think it gets talked about that much. It's not covered. It's not, I think many of us who don't see those cases in court are generally unaware of how prevalent it might be.

Denise: Yeah. I think that's true. In Minnesota, the Minnesota Women's Foundation has started a campaign and there are billboards around the state that say " Minnesota girls are not for sale."

And I think one of the things that would surprise most people is that the average John in Minnesota, when studies are done, they're well-educated white men between the ages of 29 and 51, or something like that. They're professionals. They're your neighbors.

Don: Wow. And so, in addition to seeing some of these cases in the courts where you've worked, early on you also went with the Department of Justice to help train people? Is that the right word? In getting some of the victims of human trafficking to testify, to speak, to explain, you know, really reveal what was happening to them.

Denise: Right. And how to take care of them. Because Minnesota has so many more resources than most of the countries that we visited.

One of the saddest things I've ever seen in my life is when we were in Bangkok. The federal, U.S. federal agents there who were working on a task force, took us to one of these sex markets. And there were these young girls in bikinis with numbers pinned to their bikinis, dancing on poles in these small stadium arenas. And I just sat and watched. It was so horrible. And a number of the men who came in there were Asian men, but there certainly were European-looking men in suits. I didn't know if they were going home from the office or what, but it was just appalling.

And then one of the other presenters was a Maryknoll nun from Cambodia. And in Cambodia, poor families were so desperate they would sell their daughters into the sex trade. And the girls often went back to Cambodia, both with children and because they were HIV positive.

And so the Maryknoll nuns set up homes that dealt with their physical medical needs, their emotional needs, gave them training, and set up a number of businesses for these women to have some dignity. Because of course they couldn't go back to their families because their families were ashamed, not of what the families had done, but of what these girls had done.

Don: Now, I think you mentioned that the strategy for prosecuting the cases has shifted from prosecuting the victims to prosecuting the Johns, for lack of a better word. How effective has that been?

Denise: Well, they did an interesting study in Sweden and Norway. Norway's take, their public policy, and here's my pitch for people to become legislators, because legislators make the policy by the laws that you enact. And so Norway said, "We'll decriminalize it." And Sweden said, "We won't prosecute the sex workers. We'll prosecute the customers or the promoters."

And so what that meant in Sweden was that if you were going to buy sex, it better be from someone you knew or trusted, otherwise you were going to get in big trouble. And in Norway, it was just a free-for-all. And so a lot of women got trafficked into Norway. And I think that shows how important public policy is when we're trying to address social issues.

Don: Now another area where you've spent a lot of time is working with an organization called the Division of Indian Works?

Denise: Correct.

Don: What is that? And what have you been doing with that group?

Denise: So I've been on the board of the Division of Indian Works and Kevin and I have been big financial supporters of them. So Minneapolis has one of the largest urban Indian populations in the country.

Don: And we're talking Native Americans.

Denise: Native American. And I think people, the general public is becoming more aware of the trauma that Native Americans have suffered through boarding schools, relocation, through all of those things. And so, our goal or our mission is to support and strengthen urban Indian people through culturally based education, traditional healing approaches and leadership development.

And so for instance, the leadership development, we work with kids in after-school programs, and our current Lieutenant Governor grew up in one of our programs, and we're quite proud of her as an alum. We have strengthening family circles, that deals with anger management, supportive housing, things like that. We have healing spirit house, which is for Native American boys who are in foster care, so they can be in culturally sensitive programming. And we have a food shelf.

Don: How long have you and Kevin been involved with it?

Denise: Oh, for a number of years, first as supporters. And then I've been on the board now, I forget how long I've been on the board, but for a number of years.

Don: What motivated you to get involved?

Denise: When I was in juvenile court, I was one of three judges in our district who did Indian Child Welfare Act cases. So I visited all the tribes and got to know a number of tribal members, and just have a real soft spot because I think there've been such terrible injustices. And it's very, very clear in Minnesota because of our reservations and our history. We have the largest mass execution in the history of our country here, as a result of the Dakota wars. Three hundred-some men were condemned to hang. And Bishop Whipple, who was the first Episcopal Bishop here, pled with Abraham Lincoln to bring the number down. It came down to under 50, but still imagine it.

Don: So in addition to doing your work on the court, you volunteer time and resources to the Division of Indian Works. And you also teach. Where have you taught and why do you also? I know you don't teach to get rich because that's not how it works. You're really volunteering, essentially, much of your time to teaching law. So tell us a little bit about your experience doing that, why you do it and what you get out of it.

Denise: So I'm retired from teaching, but I taught every year from 2004 to 2016, University of Minnesota Law School. But I taught trial practice, and I just loved my classes.

I love trial work, and I think it's something that almost anyone can learn. I certainly did not start out as a very good trial lawyer. But it's one of those deals where practice does make much better. I think I would tell my students, Malcolm Gladwell talked about the Beatles and his theory is that if you do anything for 10,000 hours, you get to be pretty good at it.

And that's what I tell my students. Just go out and do it. And you see these young, enthusiastic, soon-to-be lawyers, and it's one way to play it forward. And I wanted to give them a safe place to practice, opening statements and cross-examinations and expert witnesses and closing arguments and all of that.

So I just love it. I still stay in touch with students and some of them have started appearing in front of me, which is really fun.

Don: What do you want to say to current or prospective law students who might be listening to this podcast? What messages would you like them to take away from what they're hearing today, but also just your overall experience as both a lawyer and a judge?

Denise: I think the practice of law is a very, very noble profession. I think it's important that lawyers work to keep it that way. I think that you can use your law degree as I have done in a multitude of ways, everywhere from civil litigation or transactional work to nonprofit work to helping change the laws. For instance, in the area of how we deal with what we used to call prostitution.

I think that it has challenged me to be a lifelong learner. I like how I've been able to learn things about so many different areas. And I like helping set the table for people to resolve conflicts under the rule of law and not through vigilantism or chaos or revenge or however else. And I think that it's important that our courts give people places to settle differences.

And so for instance, in 2000, we were in Hong Kong at the time of the Presidential election, and it wasn't clear, was it going to be Bush or Gore? But I never worried that there would be a riot or an uprising or a military coup to settle that dispute. And people are either happy or not happy with how it came out, but we let the Court settle that.

And in my work, especially on the trial court level where you see the people and the witnesses and the lawyers, people come to court expecting a judgment or a decision and they live by it. And that's a really important thing for the future of our democracy and the future of our nation.

Don: That's the rule of law at work.

Denise: It is the rule of law work.

Don: Yeah. And it does seem threatened from time to time. But so far it's held up.

Denise: So far, it's held up, but I don't think we can take it for granted. I think each of us need to help to cultivate that.

Don: I know there are other areas we planned to cover during this interview, but I think we're probably at a point where we should think about wrapping it up. And I think my final question to you, Denise, would be, after you retire and you look back on your career, what do you hope the people whose lives you touched through your work will say about you?

Denise: I hope they'll say that they thought that I listened, that I treated them fairly. I think we're all born in the image of God. I hope that they felt respected.

I hope that they can say, not all of them would say this, but that their lives are better because we had contact.

Don: That's a good note to end on, and that's a great wish to have, for anybody. And I'm sure that there are many people who can say that about you.

So thank you very much, Denise. It's been great connecting with you this way. I've learned a lot and really have been inspired by your experiences and your thoughts about law and justice.

Denise: Thanks Don. We're on this journey together.

Don: We are, aren't we?

Denise: Yup.

Don: All right. Thank you, Denise. Bye.

Denise: Bye-bye.