Mary Muehlen Maring
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Mary Muehlen Maring is a justice on the North Dakota Supreme Court. She was first appointed to the court in 1996 by Ed Schafer, a Republican governor, to fill a vacancy. She was re-elected to a ten-year term on the court on November 4, 2008 which expires in 2018.[1]
Professional career
Education
Maring received her B.A. degree in Political Science and German from Moorhead State University in 1972. In 1975 she received a juris doctor degree from the University of North Dakota School of Law.
Legal career
From 1975 to 1976, she was the law clerk for the Honorable Bruce C. Stone, Hennepin County District Court (Minneapolis, Minnesota). In 1976, she entered the private practice of law and spent 20 years practicing law in North Dakota and Minnesota. On March 1, 1996, she was appointed by Governor Edward T. Schafer to the North Dakota Supreme Court to fill the vacancy created by Justice Levine's retirement. On November 5, 1996, she was elected to complete that term. In 1998 she was reelected to a ten-year term.[2]
Associations and awards
Justice Maring has served as president of the East Central Judicial District Bar Association, North Dakota Trial Lawyers Association, and Clay County Minnesota Bar. She has acted as arbitrator for the American Arbitration Association, North Dakota Workers Compensation Bureau, and the Better Business Bureau and private parties. She is chair of the Gender Fairness Implementation Committee of the Supreme Court and was a member of the Joint Dispute Resolution Committee.[3]
Notable decisions
Public juror information
North Dakota's Supreme Court says the names of jurors who convicted Moe Gibbs of murder should be made public, along with some information from questionnaires the jurors filled out before they were chosen to serve.
Southeast District Judge John Paulson sealed the information from public view after Gibbs was found guilty last November of murder in the September 2006 slaying of Mindy Morgenstern, 22, a Valley City State University student. Morgenstern was strangled and stabbed with two knives.
The Supreme Court on Monday ordered Paulson to disclose the jurors' names after notifying them he would do so. The justices also directed Paulson to justify any continued secrecy for the information in the juror surveys, in which jurors were asked to respond to 169 questions.
Paulson's statement that he had promised confidentiality to the 12 jurors who decided the case was not good enough, the justices said. Paulson also said he feared jurors could be harassed during Gibbs' trial in Bismarck.
"We conclude those reasons, by themselves, are insufficient to rebut the presumption of openness and to warrant a blanket closure in this case," said the Supreme Court's unanimous order, which was written by Justice Mary Muehlen Maring.[4]
Stopping out-of-state cars
Maring wrote the majority opinion in a January 2008 case involving the authority of state and local police to stop out of state vehicles sporting temporary license plates.
As a result of the 4-1 decision, out-of-state motorists face being stopped in the state of North Dakota when driving a vehicle with a temporary registration tag, even if the registration is entirely valid. The North Dakota Supreme Court came to this conclusion... in a ruling that found that Grand Forks police officers had properly stopped and searched Clinton Mitchell on October 1, 2006.
On that date, the officers pulled over Mitchell because his vehicle displayed a Montana temporary registration certificate in the rear window. The documentation was valid and came in the form a white sheet of paper with a "10-10-2006" expiration date written in bold, two-inch high letters readily visible from outside the vehicle. The certificate differed from the smaller temporary notice used in North Dakota.
During the traffic stop, the officers proceeded to question Mitchell leading to his arrest for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI). [The court] ruled that the initial stop was valid because the officer claimed he was unfamiliar with the temporary registration form used in the nearby state.
Alone in his dissent, Justice Daniel J. Crothers said, "As a result, the majority allows police to stop many out-of-state travelers for no reason other than their vehicle registrations appear different. I am concerned that this is a dangerous precedent to set."[5]
External links
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