District Court Judge James L.

Saturday, December 16, 2000

District Court Judge James L. Mork will resign next spring.

Mork, now an Olmsted County district court judge in the Third Judicial District, announced his retirement at a Friday press conference.

He advised Gov. Jesse Ventura of the decision by letter. The resignation is effective April 15, 2001.

He said he is not retiring, but, instead, "changing his focus in life on new challenges."

He is the senior district judge in the Third Judicial District and one of the most senior district judges in Minnesota.

When he received the judgeship appointment in 1978, he was one of only a very few judges to have been elected by the popular vote of the people to the position.

He was first assigned chambers in Albert Lea, Freeborn County, where he served until August 1989.

Then, the Minnesota Supreme Court assigned Mork to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of Judge William J. Nirengarten in Austin, Mower County.

When Judge Harold Krieger died, Mork was assigned to fill the vacancy in Rochester, Olmsted County in 1995.

He is serving his 22nd year as a district judge.

Mork handled the civil injunctions, when union employees of then-Wilson Packing Co. in Albert Lea went on strike in the early 1980s.

He was also assigned to handle many civil disobedience cases arising from the Hormel Foods Corp. labor dispute and strike in 1985-86.

He also heard the civil case of George A. Hormel and Jay C. Hormel heirs who sued the Hormel Foundation, charging mismanagement of investments of the Hormel trusts in 1992.

He also presided over the trail of Earl Harvey Rand on first degree murder charges in connection with the shooting death of Rodney Sash.

He was appointed in 1986 by the Minnesota Supreme Court to chair the state’s jury standards commission. The rules were later adopted and a video prepared to guide judges’ orientation in the management of juries.

For his work, Mork received the American Bar Association and Center for State Courts Jury Standards awards, one of four given nationally.

The home of the Mork family at Blooming Prairie was bombed in 1989 with no injury or loss of life to the family.

Afterwards, he was named the first chair of the Minnesota State Courts’ Security Committee, which resulted in the establishment of security standards for the state’s courts and a security manual.

After stepping down next April, Mork said he would spend the first three months considering options for future endeavors.

He plans to continue to reside in Rochester and involve himself in community affairs.

He said he also expects to speak out on legal, social and political issues, which, as a judge, ethics restrictions prevent him from doing.

He also plans to write several books.