Tag: Minnesota Supreme Court

Minnesota Supreme Court to Hear Challenge of New Felon Voting Law

The Center Square
Inmate

The Minnesota Supreme Court will hear a challenge to a new law that automatically restores voting rights to people convicted of a felony who are still on parole, probation, or supervised release in the state.

On March 3, 2023, Gov. Tim Walz (D) signed House File 28 into law. Previously in Minnesota, the state restored voting rights to people convicted of a felony after they completed all aspects of their sentence, including parole or probation. The new law restored voting rights to these individuals upon completion of incarceration, regardless of other conditions of their sentence.

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DFL Will Soon Have Monopoly of Appointees on Minnesota Supreme Court

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Tim Walz

Justice G. Barry Anderson, the lone remaining Republican appointee on the Minnesota Supreme Court, announced his retirement last week after serving nearly 20 years as one of the state’s top judges.

Anderson notified Gov. Tim Walz on Thursday of his decision to step down from the court on May 10. Anderson turns 70 in October, the age of mandatory retirement that’s required by Minnesota statute.

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Commentary: Two Judicial Strikes Against Efforts to Keep Trump Off Ballot

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Two state courts, the Minnesota Supreme Court and the Michigan Court of Claims, have thrown out the attempts by anti-democratic groups to disqualify former President Donald Trump from the ballot under the 14th Amendment, at least with respect to the presidential primary election.

The attempt to take away the ability of voters to make their own decisions on Trump’s candidacy has been temporarily halted in those states.

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Minnesota Supreme Court Dismisses Lawsuit Seeking to Remove Trump from 2024 Primary Ballot

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The Minnesota Supreme Court dismissed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking to remove former President Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential primary ballot in the state.

The court found that state law permits parties to do as they wish in the primary election, writing that “winning the presidential nomination primary does not place the person on the general election ballot as a candidate for President of the United States.” However, the court did not address the question at the center of the case: whether Trump is eligible for office under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which disqualifies public officials who took an oath to the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” from holding office.

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State Election Officials Say They Will Defer to the Courts on Removing Trump from 2024 Ballot

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Top election officials in multiple states have said they would defer to the courts on the question of removing former President Donald Trump from the 2024 ballot.

Lawsuits to remove Trump from the ballot under Section 3 of the 14th Amendment, which bars certain government officials who took an oath to the Constitution and then “engaged in insurrection” from holding office, have been filed in a number of states, including Colorado, Michigan, and Minnesota. Democratic and Republican secretaries of state in places where lawsuits have been filed say this is a question the courts need to weigh in on, according to multiple reports.

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Newest Minnesota Supreme Court Appointee Was Walz’s Chief Legal Counsel During Pandemic, Riots

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Gov. Tim Walz announced the appointment of one of his administration’s top attorneys to the Minnesota Supreme Court on Wednesday.

Karl Procaccini, 40, has spent the last 4.5 years as general counsel and deputy chief of staff in the governor’s office. Depending on who you ask, the Connecticut native and Harvard Law grad has been regarded as either a prudent or overreaching legal advisor to Walz during the Covid-19 pandemic and riots in 2020 and 2021.

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Supreme Court Rules Minneapolis Failed to Properly Staff Police Department

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Minneapolis Police Department

The Minnesota Supreme Court has sided with the plaintiffs in a lawsuit claiming the city of Minneapolis violated the law by understaffing its police department.

In an order issued Monday, the state high court concurred with the Hennepin County District Court’s ruling from last year that the Mayor has an obligation to employ a police force of 731 sworn officers — a ratio spelled out in the City Charter.

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Minnesota Supreme Court Hears Arguments on Minneapolis Police Staffing Lawsuit

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minneapolis police department

The Minnesota Supreme Court heard arguments Thursday in a lawsuit that claims the Minneapolis City Council and Mayor Jacob Frey violated the law by understaffing the city’s police department.

The lawsuit, filed by eight north side residents in 2020, outlines a city charter requirement which states in part that the council “must fund a police force of at least 0.0017 employees per resident, and provide for those employees’ compensation.”

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Minnesota Supreme Court to Take Up Minneapolis Police Staffing Case

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minneapolis police department

The Minnesota Supreme Court has granted a case review for eight Minneapolis residents appealing a lower court’s decision that argues the mayor of Minneapolis does not have a duty to employ police officers.

According to a news release from the Upper Midwest Law Center (UMLC), the legal group representing the eight residents, the Minnesota Supreme Court also granted a motion to expedite the appeal, and will therefore hear their case on Thursday, June 9.

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Minnesota Supreme Court Rules State Law Doesn’t Require Party Balance on Absentee Ballot Boards

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The Minnesota Supreme Court has ruled that cities and counties can conduct statewide elections without a strict party balance on absentee ballot boards.

Upholding a previous decision by the state’s court of appeals, Justice Barry Anderson published a 25-page ruling Wednesday dismissing the Minnesota Voters Alliance’s lawsuit against Ramsey and Olmsted counties and the city of Duluth, with the Republican Party of Minnesota listed as a co-plaintiff.

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Redistricting Panel Sets New Political Boundaries for Minnesota

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A judicial panel has finalized the boundaries that will shape Minnesota politics for the next 10 years.

The five judges appointed to a special panel by the Minnesota Supreme Court released the state’s new legislative and congressional maps Tuesday. The process, known as redistricting, happens every 10 years after the census and puts every legislative seat in the state up for grabs.

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Minnesota Supreme Court Allows Policing Ballot Question

The Center Square

The Minnesota Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s decision to strike down a ballot initiative asking whether voters want to replace the Minneapolis Police department with a department of public safety.

The ballot question, sparked by the May 2020 killing of George Floyd in police custody, weighs a more significant problem of how police balance public safety and enforcing crimes. After Floyd’s death, most of the City Council said they intended to dismantle the police department and replace it with a different model. The council pushed a plan to do so, but on Tuesday, Hennepin County Judge Jamie Anderson struck down the ballot language summary, saying it was “unreasonable and misleading.”

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Minnesota Supreme Court Rules That Permit-to-Carry Law Is Constitutional

Hayley Feland

The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled on Wednesday that Minnesota’s permit-to-carry law for handguns is constitutional. A man, Nathan Hatch, convicted of a gross misdemeanor for carrying a loaded pistol without a permit in 2018 attempted to strike down the law, saying it was “unconstitutional.” According to The Star Tribune, Hatch claimed that the law requiring handgun owners to obtain a permit to carry the firearm in public violated his right to bear arms.

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Minnesota Supreme Court Makes Controversial Rape Decision

Peter D'Abrosca

The Minnesota Supreme Court earlier this week made a controversial ruling on a case involving a convicted rapist, ordering a new trial on the grounds that the woman involved in the incident voluntarily intoxicated herself prior to the sexual encounter. 

Francois Khalil was convicted of third-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a victim who was impaired in 2019, stemming from an incident in 2017. The woman involved in the case said the two had been partying when she blacked out, and woke up to Khalil raping her. He was sentenced to five years in prison by a jury in Hennepin County. 

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Minnesota Supreme Court Easing Continuing Education Requirements for Attorneys

The Center Square

The Minnesota Supreme Court on Tuesday granted a petition that will ease regulatory burdens on lawyers by doubling the amount of on-demand continuing legal education (CLE) credits that are accepted.

Every three years, attorneys in Minnesota need to finish 45 credit hours of CLE courses to maintain their licenses but previously capped on-demand credit hours at 15, although some lawyers argue they are more convenient, relevant, affordable and numerous than in-person CLEs.

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Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz Recall Effort Under Review by State Supreme Court

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A recall effort has been filed against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) over his mask mandate in response to the coronavirus pandemic. The Minnesota Supreme Court will now review whether the grounds for recall stated in the petition are sufficient and meet statutory requirements. Two earlier efforts to recall Walz were dismissed by the supreme court because the petitions did not meet the legal standards to recall an elected official.

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Keith Ellison Goes on Rant Against Voter ID Laws: ‘Clearly a Bad Thing’

Anthony Gockowski

  Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison said laws requiring voters to present a photo ID are “clearly a bad thing” in a Sunday Twitter rant. “If you believe that elections should be decided by We the People, then photo ID is clearly a bad thing. In Minnesota, we beat the undemocratic forces in 2012 but they have come back for more in 2020. Get ready,” Ellison wrote on Twitter. If you believe that elections should be decided by We the People, then photo ID is clearly a bad thing. In Minnesota, we beat the undemocratic forces in 2012 but they have come back for more in 2020. Get ready. — Keith Ellison (@keithellison) January 26, 2020 He pointed to Minnesota’s 2012 ballot initiative that would have amended the state constitution to require voters to present a photo ID in order to vote. The initiative was defeated by 225,000 votes “because it suppresses the vote, especially of the elderly, people of color, the poor, military personnel serving overseas, and others,” said Ellison. “In 2020 it’s still a horrible idea with impure motivation. We will defeat it again,” he continued. Minnesotans rejected photo ID in 2012 by 225,000 votes because it suppresses…

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