Minnesota judge elections: What you need to know about candidates running in state court races

In Minnesota, judicial contests are not usually the most exciting thing on the November ballot.

Only nine races for judgeships out of 103 across the state have more than one candidate registered to run, and in many of those contests, the incumbent is in a strong position to win. Candidates are usually nonpartisan, and so far Minnesota has avoided the kind of expensive judicial elections that have cropped up in neighboring states like Wisconsin.

When voters turn over their ballot this fall, they’ll be asked to pick a candidate in two contested races to serve on the Minnesota Supreme Court, as well as a judge to serve on the state’s Court of Appeals and district court judges serving in counties across central and northern Minnesota.

Here’s what you need to know about the candidates:

Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson is up for election after she was appointed as the court’s first Black chief justice last fall. She served as an associate justice on the Supreme Court since 2015 and previously served 13 years on the state’s Court of Appeals. Before becoming a judge, she practiced criminal law in the Attorney General’s Office, worked as the St. Paul city attorney, worked in private practice and got her start at Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services working on housing issues. Hudson earned her law degree from the University of Minnesota. Hudson is running for re-election because she “has the experience, temperament, and intellect to work collaboratively with her colleagues on the Minnesota Supreme Court,” according to her campaign.

Her opponent, Stephen Emery, got his law degree from the University of North Dakota and has legal experience in agriculture and medicine. He “has been invested in doing legal analysis and writing” for the last 25 years, according to his campaign. Emery has sought other state offices in Minnesota, including a run for the U.S. Senate in a Democratic primary. His current campaign website touts him as “conservative representation” for the state. Emery won a race for Yellow Medicine county attorney in 2022, but he resigned before he assumed office.

Supreme Court Associate Justice Karl Procaccini was also appointed to the high court last fall. He got his law degree at Harvard University and worked for six years at Minneapolis firm Greene Espel,representing individuals, nonprofits and businesses. Procaccini joined DFL Gov. Tim Walz’s office as general counsel and served during the COVID-19 pandemic and taught at the University of St. Thomas and Mitchell Hamline law schools. Procaccini said he’s running to see the court through a transition period with three new members and preserve its “tradition of excellence and fairness.”

His opponent is Matthew Hanson, a Prior Lake attorney who has worked in trusts, estates and commercial litigation, including formerly with Securian in St. Paul. Hanson, who said he’s a fifth-generation Minnesotan, earned his law degree from Mitchell Hamline School of Law in 2018. Hanson was the lone challenger to any judge in 2022 and said he’s running again because the courts are “elected by the people to ensure justice is administered fairly and impartially.”

Diane Bratvold has served as a judge on the Court of Appeals since 2016 and was elected to a six-year term in 2018. During her time on the court, she worked on the redistricting process in the state following the 2020 U.S. Census. She previously served as a judge in the Fourth Judicial District and worked in private practice and as a trial lawyer for nearly three decades. Bratvold got her law degree at the University of Minnesota. In a Minnesota Bar Association questionnaire, she cites her decades of experience in the courtroom and her independence as the reasons voters should vote for her this fall.

Her opponent, Jonathan Woolsey, lives in Chaska. He does not have an active campaign website and did not respond to questions about his background and why he’s running for the Court of Appeals.

Incumbent Ramsey County Judge Timothy Carey attended Mitchell Hamline School of Law and was appointed to the bench by Walz in 2022. Before becoming a judge, he worked as a public probation officer and an assistant Ramsey County attorney, focusing on the “intersection between mental illness, addiction and criminal behaviors,” he said. Carey said his expertise and experience working in mental health is “critically important” at the district court level.

Paul Yang, a first-generation Hmong immigrant, is challenging Carey. He attended Mitchell Hamline School of Law and worked as an associate attorney for the Injury Law Group in St. Paul on criminal and family law, immigration and worker’s compensation cases, according to his campaign website. He started his own law firm in 2016. Yang said he’s running “to ensure that every Ramsey County resident has the same opportunity to fair, just and equitable treatment in the courts.”

Timothy Mulrooney has been a Ramsey County judge since his 2016 appointment by former Gov. Mark Dayton. He was elected to a six-year term in 2018. Mulrooney has been a licensed attorney since 1994, litigating civil, family and criminal cases, he said. He got his law degree from the University of Minnesota. Mulrooney said he’s earned a reputation for “fairness and good judgment” and wants to “ensure people receive fair process and just outcomes based on the law.”

Winona Yang grew up in Ramsey County and said she has worked as an attorney to help “represent low-income individuals in appeals and in personal injury.” She got her law degree at the Mitchell Hamline School of Law, where she’s worked as an adjunct professor, and served as an assistant to a Ramsey County commissioner. She’s running to be a judge because she believes “judges must work to ensure the legal system administers justice while also promoting social welfare and community wellbeing,” according to her campaign website.

Hennepin County Judge Matthew Frank has served in the judicial district since 2023, when he was appointed by Walz. Prior to his time on the bench, Frank worked for more than two decades in the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office and helped secured a conviction against former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. He also worked as an assistant Wright County attorney and public defender and spent three years in private practice. He got his law degree from Mitchell Hamline School of Law. “Judges must hear both parties and treat them all equally, with respect and dignity,” he said.

Christopher Leckrone got his law degree from New England Law School in Boston and prosecuted misdemeanor and felony cases in the Middlesex District Attorney’s Office, according to his campaign website. He now lives in Hennepin County and has continued work as a legal and compliance executive within banking, financial technology and technology organizations. He said he’s running for judge for “safe communities, criminal accountability and a compassionate approach to law.”

In a rare open judicial race, two candidates are going head-to-head this November after prevailing in a five-way primary. Gunnar Johnson, who got his law degree from American University in Washington, D.C., has spent much of his career working for the state Attorney General’s Office in northeastern Minnesota and as city attorney for Duluth. He currently works in private practice. He said he’s running to be a judge driven “by a desire to serve the public” and wants to make “practical and timely decisions based on the law and the facts.”

The other candidate in the race is Shawn Reed, who got his law degree from the Mitchell Hamline School of Law. He worked on contract for the city of Hermantown after college and as a partner and shareholder in three law firms, currently practicing out of his own firm, Bray & Reed, Ltd. He said he’s worked on criminal defense and civil law cases and appealed cases to the Minnesota Court of Appeals and the Minnesota Supreme Court. His experience in the courtroom prepares him to be the “Sixth Judicial District’s next district court judge on day one,” he said.

Voters in the sprawling Seventh Judicial District, which covers 10 counties across central and western Minnesota, will have the option to re-elect Judge Timothy Churchwell, who was appointed to the bench in 2017 and elected in 2018. After graduating with a law degree from Mitchell Hamline School of Law in St. Paul, Churchwell worked in private practice and served as city attorney for a half-dozen cities in the judicial district. Churchwell said his “experience and knowledge provide a solid foundation for handling the unrelenting demands of being an efficient and trusted District Court Judge.”

Joel Novak is an attorney who lives in Alexandria. He’s served in the military and spent time as a legal assistance attorney, claims attorney and a criminal defense counsel. He most recently served in private practice and says he’s argued cases before the state’s Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. He got his law degree from Drake University Law School and has run for other offices in the state, including the Seventh Congressional District as a Republican in 2020. He said he’s running because he feels the court system has been “somewhat derailed” and he wants to consider all sides and deliver “just decisions.”

Judge Helen Brosnahan is running for re-election after being appointed to the bench by Walz in 2022. Before becoming a judge, she graduated from the University of Minnesota Law School and worked as an assistant county attorney in Olmsted and Dakota counties “trying cases from minor traffic violations to the most serious and complex criminal cases,” according to her campaign website. She said her experience has given her “an exceptional foundation to make accurate [and] fair rulings as a judge.”

She’s being challenged by Nathan Hansen, who got his law degree from the University of North Dakota. Hansen said he has more than two decades of litigation experience in state and federal courts and has been involved in high profile cases, including challenging the constitutionality of absentee ballots received after Election Day during the pandemic. He also defended Larvita McFarquhar, who kept her restaurant open during COVID lockdown restrictions. Hansen said he’s the officially recommended candidate of the Republican Party of Minnesota for the seat.