Frequently Asked Questions

Minnesota Court Records Online (MCRO) provides online access to many public Minnesota state district court records and documents.

Justice-Denied uses MCRO to download public documents related to various court cases in Minnesota.

When referencing MCRO materials, we may:

• Host a copy in our PDF viewer when permitted, without modification, other than highlighting or redactions, which are noted.
• Cite the case number, court, filing date, or document title so readers can locate the document themselves via MCRO.
• Avoid publishing documents that are sealed, restricted, or otherwise non-public.

This approach balances public access, legal compliance, and accurate citation, while ensuring readers can still trace documents back to their official source.

We often provide two ways to access court documents:

PDF Viewer Links (on Justice-Denied):
These links open a locally hosted copy of the document in our PDF viewer. This ensures long-term availability, consistent formatting, accessibility across devices, and protection against broken or changed external links. It also allows readers to review documents in context, alongside related analysis. In some cases, we include highlighting of important sections of the document.

Direct Links to Official Court Sources:
When available, we also provide direct links to the official court-hosted document so readers can independently verify the source and compare it to the version we reference.

Providing both options promotes transparency, verification, and reliability—core principles of Justice-Denied.

We link to public copies in Justice-Denied’s document viewer so readers can open a cited record without first going through MCRO’s terms-and-search process. MCRO requires users to accept its terms, and its sessions reset after 30 minutes of inactivity. When we do not host a copy, we provide the case and document numbers so readers can locate the record in MCRO.

Craig: No, based on what I have seen, especially in cases before Judge Miller. The records in Stevenson, Nettestad, Azure, and Svendsen give me serious concerns.

Most of my research concerns Judge Miller, not every judge in the county.

Craig: No, based on my experience with the Otter Tail County District Court and the Minnesota Court of Appeals.

Nettestad shows that the Court of Appeals can identify and correct district-court errors, but it does not do so in every case.

I have a more favorable impression of the Minnesota Supreme Court, although review there is difficult to obtain.

Craig: No, not that I have found. Because judges have so much power and can control what evidence is discovered, how that evidence is viewed, how laws are interpreted, and ultimately, whether a case is allowed to be presented before a jury, there does not appear to be a way to overcome judicial bias. Even oversight bodies don't seem to want to address the topic.

Craig: Yes, based on my own experience, especially if Judge Miller is the presiding judge in the case. In general, I think it is prudent for all litigants to be vigilant about fairness and impartiality, in every case, regardless of judicial officer or venue.

Marie: Yes. Our concerns come from both our own litigation and the cases we have studied. We experienced discovery restrictions and a summary-judgment dismissal that, in our view, prevented a jury from deciding genuinely disputed facts. Our subsequent review identified 105 civil cases with jury-trial settings; only five had reached jury proceedings by August 31, 2026. Considered together, our experience and those findings deepen our concern about institutional barriers to jury access, including a possible predisposition toward ending cases before jurors hear disputed facts.

Craig: No. Based on how Marie’s history of abuse and resulting trauma were treated in our case, particularly by Judge Miller, I would not trust the court to protect an abuse victim in similar circumstances.

Marie: No, not at all. In our case, Judge Miller appeared to minimize my childhood abuse by stating that our submissions used the word “abuse” “colloquially.” He placed the conduct attributed to my father within a category he described as morally objectionable but “noncriminal.”

This was not simply a disagreement over terminology. The evidence described serious physical violence against a child, including conduct that caused injury and that today could result in criminal charges. In my view, characterizing my use of the word “abuse” as merely “colloquial” stripped that conduct of its seriousness and made genuine childhood abuse sound like a subjective label I had attached to ordinary family conflict. I found that characterization both deeply disturbing and indefensible.

Much of the underlying deposition testimony was confidential—necessarily so, to protect me and others from further embarrassment, harassment, or harm. Consequently, the public could not compare the Court’s characterization with the testimony itself. This allowed the Court’s broad statements to stand without meaningful public scrutiny while creating the misleading impression that my allegations had been exaggerated or fabricated.

A Dakota County judge, after reviewing evidence concerning the same history, reached a markedly different conclusion: that my fear of my father was “rational” and that I had “every right to be” afraid of him. The contrast between those two judicial responses is stark. Otter Tail County residents should be concerned when a court appears to minimize serious childhood abuse rather than treat it with the gravity it deserves.

Marie: Based on what happened in our case, I would not feel safe relying on one. Judge Miller signed two protective orders, yet repeated violations were brought to the Court’s attention without any apparent enforcement or consequences. The Court eventually declared the unresolved violations “moot,” and Judge Miller himself disclosed my previously unknown cancer diagnosis - derived from confidential information – in a public court order.

A protective order provides meaningful protection only when the court is willing to enforce it. Our experience gives Otter Tail County residents legitimate reason to question whether the confidentiality promised on paper will be protected in practice.

Craig: No. I reviewed 35 civil cases decided at summary judgment from June 2018 through December 2023. Judge Miller appeared to apply the proper standard in every case except ours, making our order the clear outlier in that review.

However, Nettestad, the contrast with Azure, and the developing Svendsen record show that serious concerns about Judge Miller’s rulings are not limited to our case. The review does not include some of his more recent cases.

Craig: Truth, justice, and accountability.

Craig: I will update this site accordingly. While we are not hopeful, given what we have witnessed, it is still possible that our case is reviewed in its entirety by a truly impartial arbiter or that additional evidence is discovered that would overturn previous decisions.

Craig: So far, Marie is doing well physically, despite the significant side effects of her cancer medication. She continues to be closely monitored by her doctors.

The psychological impact has been devastating, and it is unclear whether she will ever totally recover from the trauma she endured over the last five years.

Craig: She has always enjoyed writing, and she is seriously considering writing a book about her life experiences.

Craig: I plan to care for Marie as long as I am able, and try to help her recover from the trauma that she has endured over the last five years.

Craig: Now that the work from our own case is done, it varies greatly, from every few days to every several weeks. When new court rulings appear that directly involve or relate to an aspect of our case, or that I think might interest our readers, I try to post something.

Craig: I wanted a fair and unbiased analysis of what happened in our case. After going through the lawsuit myself, I knew I had strong feelings about it. I thought AI could help me step back and examine the court documents from another perspective. My own experience matters, too. I know what we went through, and that helps me recognize the significance of things that might not be obvious from reading an order by itself.

Craig: I thought it was a fairer way to present the AI analysis without detracting from it or influencing the reader. After reading the page, people can look at the original query to see if it was biased in any way. There are a few pages where this method did not work as well, generally due to extensive background information, so those pages are displayed in a more typical style.