As retirement looms, Judge Regina Chu reflects on a long career, impact of Kimberly Potter trial

Hennepin County District Judge Regina Chu had second thoughts when her chief asked her to preside over the manslaughter trial of ex-Brooklyn Center police officer Kimberly Potter — another case certain to bring intense public interest and emotion — but a sense of duty led her to set them aside.

That trial, which led to Potter's conviction and prison sentence, became the hallmark of Chu's 20-year career on the bench, but also made for emotional days and restless nights.

Now, fewer than six weeks after she sent Potter to prison on a two-year sentence for the death of Daunte Wright, Chu will hang up her robe next month.

"I thought about the trial a lot" away from the courtroom, Chu, 68, said in an interview with the Star Tribune on Friday, one day after Gov. Tim Walz announced her retirement.

"I would wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it. We had this rule at home: No talking about Potter after 8 o'clock," Chu said of her pact with her husband, Jack Moore. "And then we'd be in bed at 10, and I'd go, 'I just thought about something, Jack.'

"I sleep a lot better now. Let's just say that."

Chu was unapologetic about letting her emotions surface in the courtroom on Feb. 18 as she explained the sentence, which fell well below state guidelines, to the stunned disapproval of Wright's family members and their supporters. Potter will serve in prison 16 months of the 24-month sentence for the death of Wright, 20, a Black man, killed when Potter fired her handgun instead of her Taser at him during a traffic stop.

"It was the saddest case I've had in 20 years, and I've had a lot of sad cases," Chu said. "You try to control [emotions], but judges are human beings."

A hitch in her voice forced her to pause before she continued, "I'm not really a crier, but I've cried in other cases before. … I don't think there is any judge on this bench who hasn't cried at one time or another. At least, I would highly doubt it."

Chu could have sought reelection in the fall to another six-year term, but the state's mandatory retirement age for jurists of 70 would have meant her departure from the bench by July 2023 after barely 1½ years.

Instead, Chu submitted her retirement letter to Walz on Feb. 15, three days before she imposed Potter's prison sentence. She's adamant that the Potter trial did not influence her decision.

With a husband who has a 1½-year head start on retirement from a career as a lawyer, Chu said she made up her mind many weeks before the trial started that it was about time to look forward to volunteer tutoring, traveling and working on her cooking skills.

The daughter of Chinese immigrant parents who fled communism in the late 1940s, Chu became the first Asian American female district judge in Minnesota, when she was appointed by Gov. Jesse Ventura in 2002. She was elected in 2004 and reelected twice, sending her on a path toward one of the most scrutinized legal proceedings in state history in her final months on the bench.

The two-year sentence imposed by Chu fell well below the state guidelines of about six to roughly 8½ years for first-degree manslaughter for a defendant like Potter, who had no other criminal history. The presumed term was a little more than seven years.

Wright's family and attorneys angrily condemned Chu after the sentencing, saying the judge had been wrongly persuaded by Potter's often teary expressions of remorse.

Chu on Friday expressed no misgivings about her sentence, nor did she second-guess the verdicts, saying, "I respect the jury. I've always been impressed with how seriously juries take their duties, and how intently they listen to the evidence, and how hard they try to make the right decision."

In the run-up to Chu presiding over Potter's trial, protesters gathered outside the downtown Minneapolis building where they believed she lived and advocated for her to allow the court proceedings to be livestreamed. Chu eventually reversed a decision against live streaming the trial, saying protesters did not influence her but rather a resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic. In retrospect, she said, both the Potter trial and the trial ex-Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin, convicted of murdering George Floyd, proved to her that cameras can be present in the courtroom without being disruptive.

"I thought it was appropriate in the two cases and it went very smoothly, but I'm going to leave it to others as to what the parameters should be [in the future]," she said. "I forgot they were even there..."

Chu nodded from behind her desk in chambers Friday toward a rowing machine she brought to her office after building security wouldn't let her work out in the gym — a testament to the lengths she went to keep her head clear.

Before joining the bench, Chu was an attorney in private practice in Minneapolis and a special assistant attorney general in Minnesota from 1981 to 1984. She clerked for state Supreme Court Justice Douglas Amdahl and earned her degree from the William Mitchell College of Law in St. Paul after receiving an undergraduate degree from the University of Minnesota.

She has been vice chairwoman of the Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board and was president of the state chapter of the National Asian Pacific American Bar Association.

As Chu reflected on a multi-decade career, she said it's impossible to downplay the roles her judicial colleagues played.

"My fellow judges have been so supportive, both during the trial and after the trial," she said. "That's what this bench is all about."