Oversight Without Oversight

Oversight Without Oversight

When a Chief Judge Won’t Engage the Record

In Minnesota, a “chief judge” is not a ceremonial title. By statute, the chief judge of a judicial district exercises general administrative authority over the courts in that district and has the power to make judicial assignments—including assigning any judge within the district to hear matters in any court of that district.

That matters, because when serious concerns are raised about a district judge’s conduct—especially concerns grounded in transcripts, sworn declarations, and record-based comparisons—the public reasonably expects a chief judge to do more than redirect the complaint down the hall.

Our experience with Seventh Judicial District Chief Judge Michael Fritz shows the gap between what Minnesotans likely believe “administrative oversight” means, and what it can look like in practice.

148 pages in. 5 pages out.

Between April 14, 2025 and November 24, 2025, we sent Chief Judge Fritz ten letters—each focused on a discrete category of concern and supported by record citations. The combined page count was 148 pages.

Chief Judge Fritz’s responses were one page each, for a total of 5 pages.

That ratio—nearly 30-to-1—isn’t just a quirk of correspondence. It’s a picture of engagement: detailed, sourced submissions met with brief conclusions.

Letters and page counts (as submitted)

(Page totals and response totals from our own tracking document.)

What Chief Judge Fritz said he could not do

Chief Judge Fritz repeatedly emphasized that he had “limited powers” over another district judge and “no authority to publicly reprimand or privately discipline another judge.”

That statement is partly true: Minnesota’s formal discipline system is primarily handled through the Board on Judicial Standards and, ultimately, the Minnesota Supreme Court.

But it is incomplete in another sense. Minnesota law also gives a chief judge real administrative authority—including assignment authority—over the courts within the district.

So the question becomes: when the issue is framed not as “discipline,” but as administrative oversight—conflict-sensitive process, court integrity, clerk practices, recusal procedures, and record-based concerns—what does “appropriate action” look like?

The Minnesota Code of Judicial Conduct doesn’t treat misconduct as someone else’s problem

Minnesota’s Code of Judicial Conduct is explicit that judges have obligations when credible information suggests another judge may have violated the Code.

Rule 2.15(A) requires reporting when a judge has knowledge of another judge’s violation that raises a substantial question about honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness.SourceRule 2.15(A) (MN Code of Judicial Conduct): A judge must inform the appropriate authority if the judge has knowledge that another judge has committed a violation that raises a substantial question about the judge’s honesty, trustworthiness, or fitness as a judge.
Read Rule 2.15 on RevisorTap outside to close.

Rule 2.15(C) requires “appropriate action” when a judge receives credible information indicating a substantial likelihood of a violation.SourceRule 2.15(C) (MN Code of Judicial Conduct): If a judge receives information indicating a substantial likelihood that another judge has violated the Code, the judge must take “appropriate action.”
Read Rule 2.15 on RevisorTap outside to close.

And the point of that rule is not subtle. The commentary to the parallel ABA rule captures the ethical premise: ignoring known misconduct “undermines” the judiciary’s responsibility to preserve public respect for the justice system.SourceABA Model Code (Commentary to Rule 2.15): The ABA’s commentary explains that ignoring or denying known misconduct undermines a judge’s responsibility to take appropriate action and can erode public respect for the justice system.
Read the ABA Commentary on Rule 2.15Tap outside to close.

In other words: the Code contemplates that judges sometimes must act because the system will not self-correct without intervention.

What we asked for: record engagement and administrative accountability

Our first letter (April 14, 2025) asked for administrative oversight concerning Judge Kevin Miller’s conduct. It described a record-based analysis of nineteen orders, alleged asymmetrical standards, minimization of perjury/spoliation, and a serious undisclosed conflict issue tied to law clerk authorship—and cited Rule 2.15 as the ethical framework for “appropriate action.”

Later letters asked for more targeted forms of administrative attention—especially where the issues were not simply “rulings we didn’t like,” but process failures and ethics/record integrity concerns:

• Protective orders that were entered but not enforced, with alleged violations documented by declaration and a claim that the court’s inaction made confidentiality “procedural theater.”
• Independent judicial fact-gathering concerns tied to specific extra-record details stated on the record, and the due process implications of that practice.
• A direct request (December 1, 2025 letter referenced in the response) for administrative acknowledgment of constitutional issues, confirmation that Rule 2.15’s reporting obligations were considered, and assurance that internal processes were being reviewed to prevent recurrence of what we described as structural error.

What we received: conclusions, not engagement

Chief Judge Fritz’s April 22, 2025 response set the tone. He said he reviewed our letter, the AI report, and the court file, but treated the concerns as no more than disagreement with rulings—emphasizing that the Court of Appeals had reviewed those rulings and found only one legal error (which it corrected). He concluded he found “nothing” that would constitute a Code violation.

On May 5, 2025, he declined to provide “guidance and advice” (as “a judge”), again asserted there was no Code violation, defended the “author” metadata as typical clerk-drafting practice under a judge’s direction, and said reassignment was “not properly before” him because the cases were on appeal.

On June 18, 2025, he again stated he had no disciplinary authority over another district judge and directed concerns to the Board on Judicial Standards.

On November 4, 2025, responding to concerns about independent investigation, he characterized the issue as “speculation,” said there was “no evidence,” and asserted the quoted statements would “easily be within [the judge’s] personal knowledge.”

On December 29, 2025, he acknowledged requests for confirmation that Rule 2.15’s mandatory reporting obligation had been considered, but responded principally by noting this was now the “seventh letter,” stating he had “read and considered everything,” reiterating his view that no Code violation occurred, and again directing the matter to the Board.

The consistent pattern is not that Chief Judge Fritz refused to respond. The pattern is that the responses largely concluded, rather than engaged: they did not grapple with the specific record points being raised, the sworn evidence being cited, or the internal-process questions being asked.

“There is no evidence.” But the transcript is evidence.

One of the most telling moments is the November 4, 2025 response.

Chief Judge Fritz wrote that while we “speculate” about independent investigation, there is “no evidence,” and the statements “would easily be within [the judge’s] personal knowledge.”

But our November 24, 2025 letter explained why that explanation fails on its own terms: the transcript shows a judge providing precise month-and-year employment dates for a law clerk’s prior employment history—facts not introduced by either party and not found in the record materials cited.

Even if a person ultimately disagrees with our conclusion, this is exactly the kind of claim that cannot be responsibly resolved by labeling it “speculation” without addressing the underlying citation. The transcript either contains those extra-record specifics, or it doesn’t. That is a verifiable question.

What “appropriate action” can mean—and what it should look like

Rule 2.15 doesn’t require a chief judge to become an investigator, a public disciplinarian, or an appellate tribunal. It does require action calibrated to the seriousness and credibility of the information.

In a conflict-sensitive setting, “appropriate action” can mean:

• acknowledging the specific record citations raised and addressing them directly (even if to disagree),
• documenting what was reviewed and what was not reviewed,
• ensuring internal process safeguards exist (recusal screening, clerk relationship disclosure practices, record-integrity practices), and
• where the threshold is met, making a report to the appropriate authority as required by the Code.

Instead, our correspondence ended where it began: a chief judge repeatedly pointing to the Board on Judicial Standards as the “appropriate forum,” while also repeatedly stating he found no Code violation—without visible engagement with the evidence we cited to him.

The deeper issue: oversight that becomes a referral loop

This is where the page counts stop being trivia and start being theme.

When a chief judge’s response to detailed, record-based concerns is consistently (1) a short conclusion, plus (2) a referral to another body, the public doesn’t see “oversight.” It sees a referral loop—a system where accountability exists on paper, but the gatekeepers decline to engage the record that triggers it.

Minnesota’s judiciary cannot preserve public confidence by treating oversight as a hotline that always routes somewhere else—especially when ethical rules explicitly recognize that judges have duties when they receive credible information of misconduct.

That is the real question these letters raise:

When the “appropriate forum” almost always dismisses

When a chief judge’s primary answer is “take it to the Board,” the next question is unavoidable: what happens when you do?

As we documented in Eroding Trust, One Dismissal at a Time, the Board’s own reported statistics paint a bleak picture. In 2024, BJS reported 987 complaints received—and 934 summarily dismissed.

That means the standard “referral” many people are told to pursue is, statistically, a path that ends in dismissal far more often than it ends in meaningful action.

So when a chief judge responds to record-based concerns by pointing the complainant to the Board—and the Board’s dominant outcome is summary dismissal—the “referral loop” doesn’t just feel circular. It becomes circular.

Peer-elected oversight and the pressure of collegiality

In Minnesota, chief judges are not appointed from outside the district. They are elected by the district judges they oversee. (Minn. Stat. § 484.69.)

That selection method may be administratively practical, but it also raises an unavoidable public-perception question: if a chief judge’s leadership role depends on the votes of colleagues—colleagues who may later be the subject of an “administrative oversight” request—does that structure create a built-in incentive to avoid intervention?

That concern becomes sharper when oversight is not abstract. It happens within the same professional ecosystem. According to MCRO, Chief Judge Fritz and Judge Miller have held hearings in the same courthouses. Even if that is routine in a judicial district, it underscores the reality: the “overseer” and the “overseen” are not distant actors in separate institutions. They operate in the same places, with the same rotating assignments, and within the same collegial network.

And that returns us to the core accountability question—one we raised directly in our letters:

Where this fits in Justice-Denied’s broader theme

Justice-Denied is not just about one judge or one case. It is about what happens when the systems designed to prevent “one judge problems” behave as if they are not allowed to look.

In our correspondence, Chief Judge Fritz repeatedly emphasized limits on disciplinary power. But statutory administrative power is not the same thing as discipline power. And ethical duties under Rule 2.15 are not optional when the triggering threshold is met.

When oversight becomes non-engagement, it does something worse than deny relief in one case: it trains the public to believe the judiciary’s accountability mechanisms are performative.

And that is where this stops being about our letters, our page counts, or even our case. The judiciary asks the public to trust its internal checks—its chiefs, its supervisors, its “appropriate forums.” But when the gatekeeping function becomes a handoff function, what is the ordinary Minnesotan supposed to conclude?