How do judges of the Minnesota Supreme Court reach the bench?

The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.

Minnesota Supreme Court / Joined 1991 / Served to 1998

Sandra Gardebring Ogren

Justice, Minnesota Supreme Court

Sandra Gardebring Ogren was a Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, who joined the court in 1991. She previously served on the Court of Appeals of Minnesota. Opinions & record ↓ Sources ↓

Lived: 1947–2010
Tenure: 1991–1998 · 7 yrs

Judicial service

Year	Court	Appointed by	Vote
1989	Court of Appeals of Minnesota	–	–
1991	Minnesota Supreme Court	–	–

Education

Luther College

Judicial Record

In our data, Ogren authored 126 published opinions for the court (1991–1998). Most cited: State v. Othoudt (183 citations).

Published, precedential opinions from the CourtListener corpus. Counts and rankings are objective and recomputable: how we count. We describe the record, not the judge.

Selected opinions

Year	Case	Citation	Cited
1992	State v. Othoudt	482 N.W.2d 218	183
1996	State Ex Rel. Humphrey v. Philip Morris Inc.	551 N.W.2d 490	134
1992	Wartnick v. Moss & Barnett	490 N.W.2d 108	124
1997	State v. George	557 N.W.2d 575	107
1995	State v. Ostrem	535 N.W.2d 916	100
1993	State v. Gassler	505 N.W.2d 62	94
1996	State v. Jones	556 N.W.2d 903	86
1991	State v. Pilcher	472 N.W.2d 327	82
1992	Morton Buildings, Inc. v. Commissioner of Revenue	488 N.W.2d 254	77
1996	Rairdon v. State	557 N.W.2d 318	76
1997	Barton v. Moore	558 N.W.2d 746	69
1992	State v. Hummel	483 N.W.2d 68	67
1998	State v. Cross	577 N.W.2d 721	66
1995	Ruud v. Great Plains Supply, Inc.	526 N.W.2d 369	65
1998	State v. Souto	578 N.W.2d 744	64

Showing the 15 most-cited of 126 authored opinions in our data. “Cited” is inbound citations across the CourtListener corpus. Case links open the ruling’s full text (CourtListener) or its page here; read the methodology and verify against the primary source.

Questions & answers

How do judges of the Minnesota Supreme Court reach the bench?: The court's current selection method is nonpartisan election.
Which court was Sandra Gardebring Ogren on?: Sandra Gardebring Ogren was a Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Sources

Each fact on this page traces to a primary public record.

How we source & reconcile data → Data & Sources

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7 years on the Minnesota Supreme Court. Data as of 2026-03-31. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).