Hennepin County District Judge William Posten faced a dilemma in a rape case.\u00a0 A 65-year-old woman had been through an unimaginable ordeal:\u00a0 a 25-year-old drunken man had broken into her home through the kitchen window.\u00a0 When she woke up and went to investigate, he dragged her from the kitchen into the bedroom, covered her head with a blanket and raped her.\u00a0 He was out on bail, and the woman was terrified.\u00a0 She had moved in with family members and put the home she had lived in for 30 years on sale, powerless, fearing she might be attacked again.<\/p>\n
The prosecutors offered the defendant a plea to spend 4 \u00bd years in prison, much less than the 9-year prison term he would receive if he were convicted; but the trial would be some time ahead, and there was no certainty he would be convicted given the crime.<\/p>\n
Judge Posten thought this was an almost impossible choice since neither option would fully respond to the fear that the victim continued to suffer. \u00a0He decided that only the victim could decide what the most just solution was, so he called her into his chambers and gave her the choice:\u00a0 accept the plea bargain so the defendant would go immediately behind bars, or have the prosecution take the case to trial, which would hold him in prison for twice as long.\u00a0 She chose the plea bargain so she would not have to fear that the defendant was at large. \u00a0As she said later, Posten\u2019s solution made all of the difference for the victim. \u00a0Judge Posten’s act for this victim garnered him national and international media attention.<\/p>\n
After serving in the Army, William Posten enrolled in William Mitchell College of Law.\u00a0 While he attended law school at night, he was employed by Greyhound Lines, where he had worked before going to college.\u00a0 Posten earned his law degree in 1959.\u00a0 He was hired as an attorney for the Social Security Administration.\u00a0 In 1961, fellow alumnus George M. Scott, the Hennepin County Attorney, hired him into that office. \u00a0He was the second African American hired as an assistant county attorney, after fellow MHSL alumnus Stephen Maxwell, who had been hired into the Ramsey County Attorney\u2019s office.<\/p>\n
Posten was promoted to head the County Attorney\u2019s criminal division and served in the Hennepin County Attorney\u2019s office for 17 years.\u00a0 In 1973, Posten was appointed to the Fourth District Court bench in 1973 by then-Gov. Wendell Anderson. \u00a0He then became the third African American to serve the state as a district court judge, after Howard Bennett, originally appointed as a municipal judge in Hennepin County, and fellow alumnus Stephen Maxwell, appointed to the Ramsey County district court.<\/p>\n
During his tenure, Judge Posten presided over two of the most significant cases recorded in Hennepin County history: the State v. Richards criminal re-trial and Hodder v. Goodyear, 1986.<\/p>\n
Leonard Richards successfully appealed his first conviction for killing his lawyer, Robert Stratton, because he was denied the right to represent himself. The 1991 retrial of Richards, presided over by Judge Posten, was known as the longest criminal trial ever in Hennepin County \u2014 and the most expensive in state history at the time. Prosecutors argued that Richards had killed his lawyer to prevent him from turning over evidence of Richards\u2019 tax fraud to the IRS.\u00a0\u00a0 After Richards\u2019 unsuccessful attempt to introduce a mental illness defense, a jury found Richards guilty again.<\/p>\n
In Hodder v. Goodyear<\/em>, 426 N.W.2d 826 (1988)<\/strong> a 17-year-old man was seriously injured when he was mounting a truck tire and the metal rim exploded.\u00a0 The jury found Goodyear and two other defendants partly responsible because the useful life of the rim had expired without notice to the plaintiff, and awarded $3,368,916 in compensatory damages and $12.5 million in punitive damages, a sum reduced on appeal to $4 million.<\/p>\n Perhaps the most important case Posten decided, however, was Doe v. Gomez<\/em>.\u00a0 In 1978, the Minnesota legislature passed a law prohibiting state taxes being used to fund abortions except in the case of rape, incest, or if the abortion was necessary to save the mother\u2019s life.\u00a0 This law was challenged in 1993 as a violation of the fundamental right to privacy and equal protection.\u00a0 In 1994, Judge Posten held in State of Minnesota vs. Haas-Steffen <\/em>that the Minnesota Constitution included a right to privacy that included the right to have an abortion, and also held that the law withholding state funds for indigent women\u2019s abortions also violated the equal protection provisions of the Minnesota constitution.\u00a0 On appeal, Judge Posten\u2019s decision was upheld by the Minnesota Supreme Court in Doe v. Gomez<\/em> in 1995.\u00a0 As a result, the state\u2019s payouts for tax-payer funded abortions rose from $7,000 for 23 abortions in 1993 to $687,000 for 2,986 abortions in the year after Doe was decided, and more than $25 million for more than 85,000 abortions in 2017.<\/p>\n William Posten is remembered for his \u201cremarkable calm\u201d and patience in overseeing both controversial and run-of-the-mill cases during his 23-year career as a District Court judge.\u00a0 A fellow judge, Kevin Burke, noted, \u201cI can\u2019t remember anyone saying Bill Posten raised his voice about anything. Not that he didn\u2019t have strong feelings.\u201d \u00a0He and others noted that Posten was a great listener, patiently hearing litigants out well past when most judges would have cut them off.\u00a0 \u201cThere are judges who aren\u2019t great listeners and have kind of made up their mind,\u201d Burke said. \u00a0\u201cBut [Posten] truly listened, a hallmark of being a very good trial judge.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHe treated everyone with the utmost respect,\u201d said Mark Cosimini, a retired public defender in Hennepin County, who was Posten\u2019s law clerk in the early 1980s. \u00a0\u201cAll litigants were heard, even if maybe he should have cut them off,\u201d Cosimini said. \u00a0\u201cHe gave them their day in court.\u201d At his death, his colleagues described Judge Posten as “Graceful, Dignified, Calm, Patient, Unflappable under pressure, and Brilliant.\u201d<\/p>\n William Scott Posten, known as Bill, was born on March 10, 1931, to Ike and Aquila (Clark) Posten, in East Moline, Ill.<\/p>\n He graduated from Augustana College in nearby Rock Island, Illinois. \u00a0Posten then moved to Minneapolis to live with his relatives while working at Greyhound bus lines. Posten served in the Army briefly in 1953.<\/p>\n Posten lost his first wife Elizabeth, leaving him five children to care for.\u00a0 Posten met his second wife Polly in the mid-1970s. Their first date was at the St. Paul Radisson Hotel, which had a revolving restaurant on the top floor. \u00a0For a widower with five children, Polly was a perfect fit, a teacher who loved kids.\u00a0 They were married in 1975.<\/p>\n Posten died on December 4, 2018 at 87 years old.\u00a0 He is survived by Polly and three of his five children, Scott, Elaine and Melissa; and 34 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.\u00a0 His daughter Karen and son David predeceased him<\/p>\n In the community, Judge Posten was a coach in the South Side Athletic Association.\u00a0 He also worked on the campaigns of Congressman Donald Fraser in 1964 and the Johnson-Humphrey presidential ticket in 1968. \u00a0He was an NAACP state delegate and helped organize a civil rights seminar on September 12, 1964.\u00a0 Judge Posten was also on the advisory board of Mixed Blood Theater.\u00a0 He received the Honorable Warren E. Burger Distinguished Alumni Award from William Mitchell College of Law in 1994.<\/p>\n Mitchell Hamline Law Winter 2019, p.39 (December 10,2019)<\/p>\n Minneapolis Judge Lets Victim Set Punishment, Jet, January 30, 1989, p. 24<\/p>\n William Scott Posten, Minneapolis Spokesman-Recorder, December 29,2018, available at MSR News Online, https:\/\/spokesman-recorder.com\/2018\/12\/29\/%EF%BB%BFwilliam-scott-posten\/<\/p>\n William Scott Posten Obituary, Star Tribune, December 12, 2018 https:\/\/www.startribune.com\/obituaries\/detail\/0000287340\/?fullname=william-scott-posten<\/p>\n Mike Hewlett, William Posten, pioneering black Minnesota judge, dies at 87, Star Tribune, December 12, 2018, available at https:\/\/www.startribune.com\/william-posten-pioneering-black-minnesota-judge-dies-at-87\/502621881\/ A Judge Who Listened to the Victim Hennepin County District Judge William Posten faced a dilemma in a rape case.\u00a0 A 65-year-old woman had been through an unimaginable ordeal:\u00a0 a 25-year-old drunken man had broken into her home through the kitchen window.\u00a0 When she woke up and went to investigate, he dragged her from the … <\/p>\nA Patient Judge<\/h2>\n
Personal life<\/h2>\n
References:<\/h2>\n
\nMinnesota court overturns ban on Medicaid coverage for abortion, Reproductive Freedom News, June 24, 1994, vol.3 p.3.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"