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There are two big misconceptions about how any supreme court works, says Natalie Hudson, who became chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court earlier this year.
First, people tend to meld it with the other two branches of government, although the framers of the Constitution saw the court as removed and nearly untouched. “It is important—in fact, it’s critical—that the judicial branch be nonpartisan and be that neutral arbiter and not take a particular position on the issues of the day,” she says.
Seated at a large, round wooden table in her office, perched above the vast, barren Capitol grounds, Hudson says the public’s second big misconception has sprung from courtroom TV. “What they see when they’re watching television are what we would call our district courts”—with witnesses and juries and ornery judges. At the supreme court level, those theatrics have already played out. “Some of the misconception comes from the fact that we are largely invisible to a lot of people until there’s a reason to see us, right?”
In 2015, Hudson replaced Alan Page, the state Supreme Court’s first Black justice, who retired. This year, she became an historic first herself: Gov. Tim Walz appointed Hudson to the presiding seat in August, making her the state’s first Black chief justice. At 66, she is just four years from the post’s mandatory age of retirement.
“She is one of our state’s most experienced jurists, who has a strong reputation as a leader and a consensus builder,” Walz said in his announcement. “I know she is going to be an outstanding chief justice.”
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Born in Jefferson City, Missouri, Hudson came of age in Minnesota after her family moved here in the late ’60s. “I was always taught that you need to be welcoming to all of those who come before you,” she says, explaining how her parents—both educators—instilled in her an equanimity later conducive to judicial work.
After nearly pursuing veterinary science, considering social work, and ultimately majoring in English at Arizona State University, she committed to law, fueled by “fascinating” conversations with a cousin in law school. (The preveterinary program also required advanced calculus, she asides—“not my strength.”)
Hudson graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School in the early ’80s. Her stance on attorney work developed by way of Thurgood Marshall, the first Black U.S. Supreme Court justice. He saw lawyers as “social engineers,” who, she says, should use the law “to change society, to change rules, to right wrongs.”
But as Hudson was leaving the Minnesota Court of Appeals one day after a successful argument, it struck her that she had appeared before all men—all white men, she recalls. “I thought, ‘What’s wrong with that picture?’ I mean, nothing’s wrong with that picture. But where are the women decisionmakers? Where are the people of color in positions of authority?”
She considered the law’s negative impact on women—“who had to fight just for the fundamental right to vote”—and people of color. “You can look back at decisions like Plessy and Dred Scott and Korematsu.” With encouragement from others, she felt OK sacrificing the attorney’s “sword” for the judge’s robe, in Marshall’s terms. “It is certainly not lost on me, the historical impact and the historical nature of my appointment.”
Today, answering questions at the State Capitol, Hudson says it would be “inappropriate” to remark upon the U.S. Supreme Court and its latest landmark cases—as highly visible as they may be. “Those decisions could easily come before our court.”
Asked about her judicial outlook, she also says no “philosophy” steers her, such as loose constructionism, originalism, or other. “We’re not clean slates,” she clarifies, of the justices. “We’ve been written on. … And that’s why I think it is so important, particularly on an appellate body like ours, that you have some diversity within that body, because you need to hear those diverse viewpoints.”
Editor’s note: After we went to press, the Minnesota Supreme Court made headlines with the decision to dismiss an attempt to keep Donald Trump off the primary ballot. Read about that case in MinnPost.
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When did you know you had traits that would make for an effective judge?
Throughout all of my career, people have often told me that I’m a consensus builder. And I think that’s true. That’s an important trait to have, particularly on appellate body, where you need to bring together your fellow justices.
I have a pretty even temperament—I’ve been told that many times—and I think that’s important, as well. Judges hear so many controversial and emotional issues, and it’s important not to ride those waves with people, so to speak. You don’t want to be too high or too low. But also, just the ability to hear people out and be willing to listen. … I mean, really listen. One of the things I found, both as a practicing attorney and also as a judge, is that people are willing to accept results that are less than favorable to them—they’re willing to accept them more readily—if they feel like they’ve actually been heard, as in, “You actually understood and listened to what I had to say.”
Your father, Don Hudson, was also a first: the first Black football coach at Macalester College, in St. Paul. Do you remember how he held, or regarded, that fact about himself?
That’s an interesting question, because it was a tumultuous time when my dad became the head football coach, first at Central High School in Minneapolis, which doesn’t even exist anymore … and then later at Macalester College. And racial tensions were high at that time. We were just coming out of the ’60s and all of that. It was interesting, though, because my dad was always very focused on the work. I think he knew he was a trailblazer—I know he knew that. But that was really not where his head was, if you will. He rarely talked about it. His lesson to us—and, I think, to himself—was perseverance. You push through. “I’m here to coach.” And he loved football—oh my gosh.
He went through so much in terms of racial slurs and just all of that, and people, coaches walking off the job, and players walking out because they didn’t want to play for a Black man. He noted it. I think we, the family, were angrier than he was. [laughs] Maybe not so much angry as we hurt for him. We didn’t like to see him going through that. But his lesson to us was, “What’s next?” You get up, you keep walking, you keep moving. You do the job that you were brought there to do. And that’s what he did. And it wasn’t until much later, I think, as people started to recognize the trailblazing role that he had played and started saying, “You realize, Don…?”—that came to him much later.
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When I think about the pressure of being a first, I think of the pressure of being alone, but you have made it sound more communal.
There’s some of both, though. There’s always a bit of isolation when you’re a trailblazer. That has been true throughout my career, and I expect that there will be still some of that. But it’s one of those things where both can be true at the same time. You do feel a little bit of pressure from your community because people are looking to you to carry that banner. We all know, as human beings, you’re going to make mistakes occasionally, but sometimes, in communities of color, they look for their leaders to be all things, and no one can fully carry that. But, by the same token, it is very communal. … I’m strengthened by my church family that is very important to me and that supports me and strengthens me—and, of course, my own personal family.
In light of your work on the Minnesota Supreme Court Racial Bias Task Force in the early ’90s, could you tell me an example of racial bias you’ve witnessed in the judiciary process?
I know of a couple of attorneys, Black attorneys, who—and this, fortunately, is not recent—but who have come into a courtroom with the judge and judicial staff mistaking the attorney for the client, like, “Where’s your attorney?” You know, “I am the attorney.” So, [there’s] that assumption that a Black person walking into the courtroom must be the criminal defendant, because, unfortunately, in our society still today, Blacks are associated with criminality in many respects, and so the idea that there would be a Black attorney hadn’t dawned on that judge.
One of the things that I think we still struggle with, even in our current judicial system, is just the lack of minority representation in our jury pools. You know, people are entitled to a trial by jury of their peers. And yet, even still today, you have many counties in Minnesota where trials are going on where the defendants are defendants of color and there are no people of color on the jury, or there are very few. And so we’re doing some things to try to address that. There’s a pilot project going on right now in one of our districts, and we’re looking at ways to broaden that jury pool, the source list from which jurors are selected, [and] doing more in terms of community education in communities of color, about why serving on a jury is important.
What is your favorite thing about the job?
I was an English major in college. I’ve always loved to write. I love working on the decisions of the court. I love struggling with a complex legal problem and figuring out the ins and outs of it. And if we do this, you know, how’s that going to affect citizens down the road, 10 or 15 years from now? It’s like a puzzle, and I love putting together the puzzle of complex legal problems.
Least favorite?
Well, I guess two things. One thing you quickly realize in being a judge is that sometimes there are no good answers. You see such serious problems and sometimes heartbreaking situations. And the law can’t fix everything. So, sometimes you just see situations that we are not able to fix. And that can be difficult. There’s a relentlessness to this job—and that could be true of a lot of other professions and jobs, too. But I have found, over the years, you also have to do some self-care as a judge, because you do see, sometimes, such traumatic things and traumatic facts, certainly not as much as the trial court judges do, because they’re on the ground, and they’re seeing those cases come in the door. But even at the appellate level, there’s a relentlessness.
And one of my former colleagues used to say this, justice Sam Hanson was famous for saying, “The best thing about this court is you get to work with these fabulous six other justices and work things out. And the worst thing is you got to work with those same six other justices and work things out.” [laughs] Because you don’t have your own fiefdom here; you’re not like a trial court judge, where what you say goes. You’ve got to figure that out with your colleagues, and that’s really not a bad thing. It’s an interesting part of the job, but I love it.
