Nigeria RPCV Lynn Olson has made an interesting discovery since retiring after 22 years as an Anoka County judge to manage an art gallery: Artists and criminal defendants have a lot in common. They're both creative, always short of money and have low self-esteem
Law, art and life lessons
Jim Adams, Star Tribune
April 4, 2005 O
Caption: Lynn Olson hung a collection of prints by artist Chris Cinque last week at the Frank Stone Gallery. Olson, retired after 22 years as an Anoka County public defender and district court judge, now is managing an art gallery in northeast Minneapolis along with her husband. Photo: Marlin Levison Star Tribune
Lynn Olson has made an interesting discovery since retiring after 22 years as an Anoka County judge to manage an art gallery in northeast Minneapolis:
Artists and criminal defendants have a lot in common. They're both creative, always short of money and have low self-esteem. They also respond well to kindness, she said.
"You have to know what to say and how to deal with them and what's going to work," Olson said. "And you know their minds are not necessarily with you and are often somewhere else."
Olson, 63, retired last fall from the judgeship, her favorite job among many. She had been a teacher in the Peace Corps, a social worker, prosecutor and public defender.
Now she has gone from part- to full-time manager of the Frank Stone Gallery, but she still occasionally handles felony trials in Hennepin County courts.
Lynn Olson
Marlin Levison
Star Tribune
Sitting on a sofa recently, watching several artists hang sketches on the gallery walls, she talked about what she learned in the courtroom about human behavior and about finding a place for kindness in the courtroom.
She has noticed, for instance, that some artists, criminals and even judges cloak their fears of inadequacy or rejection in prideful arrogance.
"The most arrogant of them are usually the ones that are the most afraid," she said. "I started out that way. I may have seemed arrogant, but I was terrified."
She learned how to be a judge from now-retired Supreme Court Justice Esther Tomljanovich, the first woman judge in the Tenth District, which includes Anoka County.
"She taught me you could be kind to people and still be strong," Olson said. "I kept that in my mind: that you have to be kind to people. ... It's hard for defendants, attorneys, law enforcement, social workers and probation officers. If the judge treats them well, I think they do a better job than if they are afraid of the judge."
As her confidence grew, she relaxed and "learned it is OK to laugh on the bench and occasionally crack a joke," she said. "It took me a lot of years to learn that."
She said she looked for what motivated offenders in encouraging them to straighten out while on probation. It might be the chance to stay out of jail and be involved with their children. Or she tried humor.
"Sometimes, I'd tell them they have to stop being a burglar because 'You aren't good at it. You keep getting caught. Let's find a way to get you into a vo-tech school, because you'd be good at that.' "
People who worked with Olson called her a compassionate judge.
"One great thing about Judge Olson is she knew big from little and could discern when to give people second chances," said Bryan Leary, an Anoka County public defender.
County Attorney Bob Johnson said he has appealed some of Olson's decisions.
"But I never questioned that Lynn did what she absolutely believed was the right thing for people," he said. "Lynn had this big heart that led her to understand the human part of the work we do in the justice system."
That heart led Olson, as a 21-year-old Michigan State graduate, to the Peace Corps and teaching grade-school children in Nigeria in 1964. She met her first husband in the Peace Corps and they spent two more years in Australia, where she also taught school.
Olson, who grew up near Pittsburgh and Detroit, came to Minneapolis in 1971. She became a social worker, but after feeling the emotional drain of working with troubled people, she attended night classes at William Mitchell Law School when she was in her 30s. She earned a law degree and started working as a Hennepin County public defender.
She became a judge in 1982, and gained public attention when Gov. Rudy Perpich chose her in 1985 to lead an inquiry into alleged mishandling of child sex-abuse cases by Scott County Attorney Kathleen Morris. Olson led two months of hearings into the handling of the notorious sex-abuse case out of Jordan, Minn.
Olson and two lawyers eventually concluded that Morris committed malfeasance, but that it wasn't enough to justify removing her from office. She lost her seat in the next election.
Court reporter Chris DuSchane became Olson's confidant through murder trials and her divorce. DuSchane was maid of honor at Olson's wedding to sculptor Frank Stone in 1997.
"We learned to be able to trust each other, which is really important in a courthouse and in life," DuSchane said. "We think out loud, bounce things off each other and listen to each other's advice."
It was DuSchane's advice that prompted Olson to leave the courthouse for the art gallery, which was taking increasing amounts of her time. Olson had been thinking about the move for a year, but said she worried about DuSchane finding a new job. The judge never got around to writing a resignation letter.
Although DuSchane didn't want Olson to leave, DuSchane eventually decided it would be best for her friend. Last fall DuSchane typed up a resignation letter and put it on the judge's desk.
"I said, 'Just sign it,' and she did. I took it and mailed it because I didn't know if she would," DuSchane said. "My advice was 'Go. Go and have fun.' "
Jim Adams is at jadams@startribune.com.
