West St. Paul attorney Michelle MacDonald is asking the Minnesota Supreme Court to reconsider its decision last month to indefinitely suspend her law license for a pattern of misconduct.
Among the arguments outlined this week in a 17-page filing to the state's high court — for which MacDonald has unsuccessfully run for election four times — is that the justices overlooked her participation in a "restorative prayer circle" with Dakota County Judge David Knutson, whose integrity she was accused of impugning.
"During my campaign, I advocated a unitive system — a model of justice that is equal and voluntary, where those in conflict meet in a safe space, hear each other out, and decide what to do about their conflict," MacDonald wrote in an e-mail to the Star Tribune. "My circle with Judge Knutson is a prime example of how the system should stay out of the way."
The Supreme Court ruled last month that MacDonald "recklessly made false statements about the integrity" of Knutson and repeated those false statements in a 2018 radio interview while she was on probation for the initial statements.
The court's June 30 imposition of an indefinite suspension was set to take effect two weeks after the order. A public Minnesota Judicial Branch database now lists MacDonald as not authorized to practice law in the state.
Her petition, filed by attorney Bobby Joe Champion, argued that the justices went beyond the recommendations of a court-appointed referee who analyzed a call for discipline filed by the state's legal licensing arm.
Champion, who is also a DFL state senator representing Minneapolis, wrote that the Supreme Court deferred to all of the referee's findings with the exception of the referee's recommendation that MacDonald be on probation rather than have her license suspended.
Knutson presided over the 2013 child custody trial of Sandra Grazzini-Rucki, whom MacDonald represented. Grazzini-Rucki was later convicted of hiding her two daughters from their father for two years.
