INTERVIEW WITH MORIA KRUEGER

 Today is June 16, 2015 and this is Dale Peterson.  I’m a member of the Dane County Bar History Committee. I am currently at the Stroud, Willink & Howard law firm in Madison and I'm here to interview Moria Krueger. I'm doing the interview as part of the Dane County Bar Association's oral history project. This interview is being recorded and will be transcribed and made available for people interested in the evolution and development of the practice of law in Dane County. Moria, do I have your permission to record you and have a transcript prepared?

MK:       You do indeed.

DP:        Thank you. Please state your full name.

MK:       Moria Krueger.

DP:        Where do you live now?

MK:       I live here in Madison. Same house for 44 years.

DP:        Can you give us a description of your family, your spouse, children, grandchildren?

MK:       How much time do you have?

DP:        All right.

MK:      I have a spouse who lives at the same place. We have three children. We have a firstborn and then there's a 10-year break between our firstborn son and then the twins. Two of my children live in California. My first son is married and has two children. Those are our grandchildren. He practices law in Laguna Beach. Our daughter is in Burbank. She's in the film industry. She works in cinematography. Our second son, the other twin, lives in New York City. He works for the Soros Foundation and does some interesting things. Both my sons are very musically inclined and so they're frustrated musicians. That would be their first choice of careers but that doesn't always work out.

DP:        Where did your son that's the attorney go to law school?

MK:       Georgetown.

DP:        And when did he graduate?

MK:       That's a good question. '96 or ‘97, I'm not sure.

DP:        And what type of practice does he have in California?

MK:      He has a fascinating practice. Primarily legal malpractice. So you be nice to him when you meet him.

DP:        All right. Are you currently working or retired?

MK:       Retired.

DP:        And how long have you been retired?

MK:       Since 2007. So almost 30 years on the bench.

DP:        After you retired from the bench, did you engage in the practice of law?

MK:       Not really, no.

DP:        After you retired from the bench, did you continue as a reserve judge?

MK:       Yes.

DP:        What type of schedule did you have as a reserve judge?

MK:       It was very active when I first retired. I actually did a medical malpractice two-week case in Green County but it's calmed down substantially because there are so many retired judges now. There are as many retired judges as we have sitting judges in Dane County right now so -- and the state budget has caused a constriction of the use of reserve judges. You have to really establish a need to get a reserve judge.

DP:        And, so there's a rotation as far as those assignments being given to reserve judges?

MK:       It's magical. I'm not sure how it works.

DP:        All right. Can you describe what your current activities are now that you're retired?

MK:      (laughs) Step back. At my retirement party, everyone kept asking me what I was going to do when I retired. And I was shocked. I didn't know you had to do anything when you retired. I thought you could just be idle. So, then I got into the old parochial school justify yourself -- and people would ask me and I would list all my various and sundry activities. I've decided to now just cut back on that and say I do whatever I want to do whenever I want it.

DP:        Okay.

MK:       That's what I do.

DP:        So it's day by day, doing what you enjoy to do.

MK:       Exactly.

DP:        Good for you. I'm going to ask you about your pre-law school experience. Where were you born and when were you born?

MK:      Oh, you're very prying. I was born in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, in 1944. My father, an Annapolis graduate, had been serving as a test pilot and he volunteered to go to the Pacific as he was training young pilots and he couldn't stand that they were going off to get shot at and he wasn't. Not knowing when he left that my mother was pregnant with me. When I was 3 mos. old, he was shot down. So, I grew up without a father. I probably would have lived every other place besides Manitowoc but my mother returned to her family when that happened. So I have a brother and a sister, who are obviously both older.

DP:        Hmm, mmm. What service was he in?

MK:       Navy. He was a naval officer. He was a pilot.

DP:        Where did you go to high school?

MK:       Lincoln High School. Famous Lincoln High School.

DP:        In Manitowoc?

MK:       In Manitowoc.

DP:        After you graduated from Manitowoc high school, where did you go to college?

MK:      I started off at American University, studying to be in international service. Couldn't stand it. Left. Ended up at San Francisco State for two years and then graduated from the University of California at Berkeley, and, yes, I was there for the free speech movement.

DP:        Okay.

MK:       And Mario Savio.

DP:        So, you started in Washington, D.C. at American University?

MK:       Right.

DP:        And you ended up at Berkeley?

MK:       Right.

DP:        So you were radicalized at Berkeley?

MK:       Indeed. Indeed, I was.

DP:        And what degree did you earn at Berkeley?

MK:       Bachelor in English literature.

DP:        What year did you graduate from Berkeley?

MK        '66. Yeah, '66.

DP:        After college, did you go directly to law school?

MK:       No. I was going to marry an Iranian, so I went over to Iran for a white.

DP:        So you graduated from school, you followed a boyfriend to Iran.

MK:       Right.

DP:        What did you do in Iran?

MK:       I taught at -- I taught English at a school run by the American Information Service --I can't remember the name -- which was a fascinating experience.

DP:        How long did you stay in Iran?

MK:       I was in Iran about 5 months, and then we spent some time in Europe before I came back.

DP:        Once you got back to America, what did you do next?

MK:      Tried to figure out what to do next. I first became a feminist in Iran, for probably obvious reasons. I knew upon my return that Iran was not my future, so I started considering going to law school, and I had a very generous aunt who, in fact, basically raised me who made that possible. I took the law boards that summer and got in that fall. Things were very different back then.

DP:        Okay.

MK:       And that was Wisconsin.

DP:        Well, you said that your experience in Iran is what caused you to become a feminist?

MK:       Right.

DP:        When you were in Iran in the late ‘60s, the Shah of Iran would have been in power, correct?

MK:       Indeed. Yes. Yes.

DP:        And so you saw how females were treated?

MK:       Yes.

DP:        And that opened your eyes?

MK:       Yes. And then I also saw how I would be treated. His family gave me an entire trousseau. I mean, they were all set for us to get married. Then I realized — as people now know because of movies and things — I didn't know at the time, that if I had married this guy, he could have gotten married three or four more times ... that if we had children, I would not be able to remove them from Iran without his specific permission. And the chips were basically not stacked in a woman's favor there. So —

DP:        So, you decided to come back here?

MK:       Right.

DP:        So, then, you indicated you took the boards and got admitted at UW-Madison?

MK:       Right.

DP:        When did you start law school?

MK:       '66.

DP:        Well, you graduated —

MK:       ‘67. '67, yeah.

DP:        And, did you finish law school in three years?

MK:       Yes.

DP:        All at UW-Madison?

MK:       Yes.

DP:        Did you work during law school?

MK:       I had some — I did some research and things for professors, but — oh, and I worked at Legal Services about 20 hours a week.

DP:        You told me before we started the interview that when you started law school, you had seven women in your class.

MK:       That's right. Six of us graduated.

DP:        Okay.

MK:      It's very different, a very different world and there was a lot of — if you're interested in this — a lot of hostility toward the women because when I first started, you could get a draft deferment if you were in graduate school and a lot of the male students felt that women were taking up those positions that other people could have so we had doors slammed in our face, we had books knocked out of our arms. For Legal Writing, we had to do legal arguments and they paired us off. Two of us were supposed to work on it and present it and the guy refused to work with me because I was a you-know-what.

DP:        And, so the — a view was that you as a female was filling the spot of a male who would then get a deferment and didn't have to go to Vietnam?

MK:       That was the theory.

DP:        And that you weren't worthy of being in law school because of that?

MK:       Well, it just was wrong, so —

DP:        Did you have any female professors while you were in law school?

MK:      Margo Melli who is and was an incredible mentor to me. She was —yeah, and I had Shirley Abrahamson for Tax. At that time, I think those were the only two. You know, don't quote me on that, but those are the only two I remember.

DP:        Well, describe for me any memorable classes, professors, classmates, law school experiences.

MK:       One of my favorites — I don't know if you knew Gordon Baldwin .

DP:        I did.

MK:       When — war protests sort of like followed me from Berkeley. We had some disruptions on campus right around that time. At one point, the National Guard occupied the campus and the law school. And I remember standing and looking at these soldiers with guns walking through the law school. Next to me was Gordon Baldwin. And I uttered quite loudly a very impolite expletive. And Gordon looked at me and said — and I had just booked his Constitutional Law class — he said, "You don't understand, this is wonderful." — and he and I got into this raging argument. And I thought, I love this. (laughs)

DP:        What memorable classes did you have? What classes did you like best in law school?

MK:       I had an incredible class with Ziegurd Zile and it was a — it was my second or third year. And it was the first graduate level seminar I had ever had and I just found it so intellectually stimulating, I ended up writing a paper on municipal corporations in Tanzania. Now, that's pretty exciting, but Zile made it exciting. He was — it wasn't limited to the subject matter at hand. I loved torts and was not too crazy about contract law, but did pretty well in that class. One of the things is that I spoke out in class which was unusual because most of the women didn't and so l, you know, I ended up knowing a lot more people because they knew who I was.

DP:        And what did you think overall of your law school experience?

MK:       Now, I respect it. At the time I graduated, I was just so sick of schooling that I wanted to be as far away from there as possible, but I can appreciate that it was a pretty good education, pretty rigorous.

DP:        I want to talk about your career after you graduated from law school. When you graduated, did you have a job lined up?

MK:      Yes. I had worked at Legal Services. Chuck Jones who was a judge here and a very close, personal friend — he wasn't a close, personal friend at the time — had just received a grant to have a juvenile defender at Legal Services -- as a federal grant, I do believe — and, this was shortly after the Gault case and the Kent case where juvenile rights were just beginning to be recognized and Gault did say that kids were entitled to have an attorney. And no provision had been made for that just about anywhere in Wisconsin, so I was hired to be the first juvenile defender in Dane County which was a very wonderful job. And that was the first, first two years of my life out of law school.

DP:        And, who did you report to? Who mentored you in that position?

MK:       Well, Chuck, but he didn't have any particular expertise in juvenile law, so it was kind of, learn as you go. Things have evolved so much since then. At that time, there was no prosecutor because social workers would bring the petitions and it was — everybody would sit around and talk about it and there was Erv Brunner who was just brilliant when it came to dispositions but he wasn't a big legal technician. And, so it was like, it really wasn't fair because for the first six months, I had no legal opposition and so, you know, it was success after success after success. Then the County finally got a little wise and hired a DA to prosecute juvenile matters. But there wasn't anything like that at the time. So it was fun.

DP:        So the whole area was evolving

MK:       Oh, very quickly. Very, very quickly.

DP:        Where was your office?

MK:       In the Legal Services on South Pinckney, where that big building is now, Block 89 or whatever that — on South Pinckney, right next door to the Hideaway Bar which was sort of our office away from home. It had a lot of good pinball machines, Charlie Dykman was a champ. So, it was — lots of camaraderie at that time.

DP:        My outline asked me to ask you whether you remember how much you were getting paid in your first job out of law school.

MK:      $10,000 a year. That was the grant. And one of the people I hired was Rick Phelps. He was my student intern and then he got hired on to be a staff attorney there doing the juvenile stuff.

DP:        How big of an office did you have?

MK:      About a third of the size of this room (laughs). It was in this crummy old building—I mean, this was Legal Services, this was —

DP:        Clerical staff?

MK:       It was just for the whole office. Then they picked up, they started doing the criminal defense work there plus there was the civil division. So, there were like maybe two secretaries for nine lawyers.

DP:        Okay.

MK:       It wasn't overstaffed. We did a lot of our own clerical work.

DP:        How long were you at Legal Services?

MK:       I was there two years. Then I became pregnant and —first, there was this big controversy, was I Miss or Mrs. and when I said "Ms.," people just couldn't handle it. It was that was the time, everything was evolving. Then I got pregnant and my male delinquent, allegedly delinquent, clients — they were mostly male at the time -- would refuse to walk over to the courthouse with me because they didn't want to be seen walking next to a pregnant woman. Different days, just different days. And, so I just decided that I would be more effective if I took an early maternity leave.

DP:        Were you married in law school?

MK:       No, we were married the summer I graduated. '70.

DP:        When you say your clients didn't want to walk over with you when you were pregnant, to the courthouse —

MK:       Right, right.

DP:        -- were these juvenile males or -- ?

MK:       Oh yeah, male, sure, sure.

DP:        So you told them to meet you at the courthouse then?

MK:       Well, and then they wouldn't stand next to me in the hallway, you know, they had trouble sitting next to me at the — I mean, in this —they just couldn't handle it.

DP:        It was an awkward time?

MK:       It was bad enough it was a woman lawyer, but a pregnant woman lawyer, jeez, what do I have to put up with?

DP:        After two years then, you left Legal Services. Where did you go?

MK:      Okay. I worked at the law school. I taught Criminal Procedure and supervised clinical students at Legal Services for a year or two, I can remember, and then I entered private practice with my spouse, which I've already mentioned to you off the record, wasn't the best idea for a marriage. 

DP:        It's challenging?

MK:       It was challenging — let's put it that way — you're so diplomatic, Mr. Peterson.

DP:        How long did you and Edward practice together?

MK:       Oh, this is —four or five years, I think. Yeah, because then the election was in ‘77. So —

DP:        What consisted of your practice when you and Ed were practicing together?

MK:      He was doing primarily criminal things. I did juvenile things where the child did not qualify for a court appointed lawyer, or Legal Services lawyer, the family made too much money or they wanted to hire a private lawyer. I did a lot of family law. I did some criminal work. Very little civil. Very little civil.

DP:        This partnership you had with Edward, he was doing criminal work?

MK:       Mostly.

DP:        Lasted four or five years?

MK:       Right.

DP:        Where was your office?

MK:       That lovely house that's on the corner of South —

DP:        Hamilton.

MK:       -- Hamilton Street, yeah. We had the second floor and I had a — it was nice. Ralph Kahlil shared offices with us, as did Hal Harlowe for a while and, I think, Eric Shulenberg was with us briefly.

DP:        What involvement did you have in professional organizations when you were practicing?

MK:       When I was practicing —

DP:        State Bar or Dane County Bar? Other bars?

MK:       Not really, no.

DP:        You were involved in other activities?

MK:       Yes.

DP:        What about pro bono practice? Your private practice?

MK:       Yeah. You know, I think you end up doing it whether you are volunteering for it or not. Yes. Yes, I had a number of pro bono cases.

DP:        And, by the very nature of your practice, it's one that very often has free services provided to the needy?

MK:      Well, because there really weren't a lot of free services formally provided to the needy and people would walk in your door with these horrendous situations and you end up doing the case. You try to limit — I mean, you can't pay the rent with those cases.

DP:        Describe your involvement in community organizations at that time.

MK:       When I was at Legal Services in the juvenile division, we set up Briarpatch for runaways which was very exciting. I was one of the founders of that and I remember detectives trying to break down the door when we were there with the runaways and I'm trying to yell out about their legal rights — I mean, it was very exciting (laughs) because life was very different. I was a founding member of this branch of the National Women's Political Caucus, and I didn't really join any service clubs. Those things — I was a member of the — I can't remember his name now, um, Bill — I was a member of the Civil Liberty Union Legislative Branch, and a former professor at the law school worked us so hard. I ended up sitting in hearings at the Capitol. I didn't want to but we were monitoring legislation for the Union and to make sure, to try to keep unconstitutional measures from passing. That was very time consuming. What else was I doing? I had a young child. Oh, and my mother and sister were both dying at the time, here in Madison, under my care. So it was a busy time.

DP:        I bet.

MK:       And I was the major draftsperson of the revision to the children's code that passed in '78. I drafted it in '77 and part of '76. That was a huge — total revision of the children's code.

DP:        You worked with the legislative committees to get that enacted?

MK:       Youth Policy and Law was the sponsor. Rick Phelps was the head of that at that time and then it was presented —yeah, we worked with the legislators who introduced it. That was a major undertaking.

DP:        What did you do next? What happened next?

MK:       What happened next. Well, in May of 1977, as— I think we should do full disclosure here, Dale, —

DP:        Right.

MK:       That you were my first law clerk when I became a judge.

DP:        And, I was also the law clerk for the predecessor, so I got a view of the before and after.

MK:       That's what I want to do for lunch. (laughs) I want to hear your perspective.

DP:        Sure.

MK:       I've never asked you so l ‘d love to learn this. So, in 1977, we are watching television and we hear a report about a case that Judge Archie Simonson heard — a juvenile dispositional case — I don't remember why he was even hearing a juvenile case — Erv Brunner was the juvenile judge, but for some reason, Judge Simonson had the case, and it involved a dispositional hearing for one of the boys who admitted that he participated in a group sexual assault of a fellow female student at West High. Judge Simonson said some things that the community, most of the community, found to be very inappropriate things. Basically saying it's our promiscuous society that does this and that, the way people dress now, he used to have to go to the south side of Chicago and pay good money to see it, when you could just walk down State Street — said things like that and continued to say things like that. Gave interviews to just about anyone who asked and a recall petition was begun and a lot of people worked on that. I did some notarizing but other than that, I didn't circulate.

DP:        So, in May of 1977, you're watching TV and the news reports break that Archie Simonson had made these inflammatory comments in sentencing? My recollection from the news at that time is, even though this was a closed juvenile hearing, he had allowed a reporter

MK:       Anita Clark, yeah.

DP:        - right. She was a reporter for the State Journal.

MK:       Right.

DP:        And so, she heard what the judge was saying in this disposition hearing and placing some responsibility on the victim for triggering the sexual assault.

MK:       Right.

DP:        And, uh, that was not well received in the community when it was publicized, isn't that right?

MK:       Yeah. There were protests and it turns out that one of the famous ones, Annie Laurie Gaylor, is dressed as a nun with a sign against Archie in front of the City-County Building, and, the judge had for some reason set up an interview with, I think, cameras from Chicago, and this was photogenic, what was happening out in front of the City-County Building. They got the film so it went national. Things didn't go viral back then, but this went national. And the controversy stirred national interest.

DP:        Before you decided to run in this election, had you been involved in the underlying recall effort?

MK:      No. Other than notarizing some petitions, I did not get involved in that. But I very early on announced my interest, if they secured enough signatures, in running in an election, because I had just about decided that I was going to run against Judge Simonson in the Spring election when he was up anyway because I had a great deal of difficulty practicing in front of him.

DP:        What efforts then did you undertake as far as circulating the petitions to collect enough signatures for the recall?

MK:       I did not circulate the petitions. They asked for lawyers to come down to A Room of One's Own to help notarize and I did some notarizing, that's it.

DP:        So you weren't one of the underlying people that organized the recall effort?

MK:       No, because I had already indicated my interest in running. I don't think it would have   been illegal. I just didn't think it was appropriate.

DP:        All right. Well, did the recall effort succeed in getting enough signatures to take it back to the voters for an election?

MK:       Yes. They had more — in fact, they got 15,000 more than they needed, so it was a very successful effort and then it was set for an election in September.

DP:        My recollection of recall law is that there was a high threshold. You needed about 25% of the electorate to sign petitions in order to do the recall.

MK:       I think it was 25% of the vote in the last gubernatorial election.

DP:        Right. And so they surpassed that and so Judge Simonson was up for a recall election, correct?

MK:       Right. And that was set for September. So it was a summer campaign.

DP:        Do you remember when you announced that you'd be a candidate to run against Simonson in that election?

MK:       Very early on. Oh, I could have looked that up. I have the clipping. Very early on. I was, I think, the first one to announce. There was a meeting— oh, I was also a member of the Legal Association for Women in Dane County — and we had a meeting and three women said at the meeting that they were interested in running. l, of course, was one. Angela Bartell was another. And Eunice Gibson was another. What was interesting is, all three of us were Order of the Coif, so this was not the dregs of the law school. Angie Bartell was appointed judge shortly after the election by Governor Schreiber so I think she kind of had a feeling that that was coming so she didn't have to run.

DP:        So you threw your hat in the ring and announced that you were going to be a candidate.

MK:       Right.

DP:        Who else, do you recall, were candidates in the recall election?

MK:      This was very difficult. The law is different now. In 1977, there was no primary, a fact which in everyone's opinion very much favored the incumbent. I had not realized until the Walker recall, I just had not paid attention, that now there is a primary. So, in preparing a paper I was doing, I went to the Legislative Reference Bureau and I looked at the legislative history and one of the people who introduced this was Representative Peter Baer, who had been active in my campaign, so I contacted him and I asked was it in response to this situation. And he said yes. Because nobody got a majority in the recall. You wanted to know who the candidates were. Daniel Moeser, who later became a judge, Robert Burr, a lawyer named Sam Piper, formal name, Worth Piper, and William Bradford Smith, and myself. 

DP:        And Judge Simonson.

MK:       And Judge Simonson, yes, of course, thank you.

DP:        And so the whole panel was running for election and whoever got the most votes, won the office?

MK:       Right. Right.

DP:        And, the point that you had made and I've read this paper that you put together, the historical perspective and personal perspective on the recall, the more candidates who were in the race, the more it favors the incumbent because it's diluting the votes of the opponents.

MK:       Right. Right. And obviously the incumbent's better known than the other candidates so

DP:        Once you threw your hat in the ring and were running for Dane County circuit judge, how many women judges were on the bench in Dane County?

MK:       Zero. And other than Shirley Abrahamson on the Supreme Court, none in the state.

DP:        So, Dane County had never before elected a female judge, is that correct?

MK:       Correct.

DP:        So you're in a group in 1977 — there's six of you running for the office, correct?

MK:       Right.

DP:        Tell me what campaigning — what did you do to get elected?

MK:       I don't think there have been many judicial campaigns like this. A supporter donated an entire floor of her office building which was known as the Jackman Building. So we had a formal, large campaign headquarters. Our first big assignment was to send campaign literature to all the signers of the recall petition which came to about 36,000 which is a pretty big undertaking for a county-wide race. We had tons of volunteers. And we had, you know, the usual lawn signs and buttons and Ben Sidrin did a benefit for the campaign. We did all the traditional coffees, plus we had summer parades, and I marched in summer parades. My 5-year-old son’s shoe became untied for one of the parades and we held up a parade in Brooklyn for about 10 minutes while I worked on his shoe (laughs). Radio shows, local TV interviews, not national, newspaper reports — something was happening constantly and I don't think there have been many judicial campaigns like this.

Meanwhile, there's a big debate raging as to whether a recall is appropriate and the liberal Cap Times came out against recall, saying that it would —that this would keep judges from making proper decisions if they had to suffer the slings and arrows of recall. And the Dane County Bar newsletter published an editorial about — something about be careful, better think it over next time girls — calling us girls. So, it was, it was something else. It was a heck of a summer.

DP:        And the recall was highlighted, was featured in the local newspapers and TV regularly, isn't that right?

MK:      Right. And national — Judge Simonson went on, I think, the Phil Donahue Show or something, one of those big national shows, and basically repeated his contentions and then everybody got stirred up all over again and the nation started to take note. It was depicted nationwide as sort of like the battle of the sexes, you know, the flaming feminists against the concerned judge.

DP:        You described the activities you were involved in. What about the financial implications? Were there campaign finance limitations? And what money came in and what money was spent?

MK:      In total, the campaign was about — I mean, they didn't have records like we do now back then — but it was about $25,000 which was a lot in those days. But, by comparison, which I did in my recall paper, that would have been in today's money about $76,000 and in the last contested campaign here, one of the candidates spent $150-some thousand, so it was a lot. But, -- and we raised quite a bit of money through the mailings, so —

DP:        Did you buy TV ads?

MK:      We did. The big one was during a prime-time premier showing of "All the President's Men," the Watergate movie, and we knew that would get a big viewership and we paid a lot of money for that ad (laughs), but it was very effective.

DP:        Were there debates among the candidates?

MK:      Yes, there were. There weren't a lot where all six of us were there but there were some. And it was interesting. I’m not going to name the clubs, but there were some clubs that would invite the male candidates but not the female candidate which was quite distressing to me. The one I remember the most is one of the candidates saying that it's inappropriate that one of us represents special interests. In my naiveté, I thought he was talking about Exxon or Texaco or something like that. It turns out he was talking about women. That I represented special interests. Given that we were 52% of the population at that time, I had a little trouble understanding that. But that was the kind of thing that was going on.

DP:        Were the forums — at the forums, were they heated debates?

MK:       (laughs) That one got pretty heated. I think there were only two or three forums — but it did seem a little bit like we were ganging up on Judge Simonson because there were so many of a totally different perspective from his, so —

DP:        And was that really the subject matter of the discussion during the forums, whether his comments were appropriate or inappropriate?

MK:      Yeah. And for a long time we didn't have a transcript of the hearing so we had to rely on what was in the newspaper. There was the typical, you know, what are your qualifications, kind of thing — and when you've got six people, that takes a long time to get through, so there wasn't a lot of time left but, of course, his comments were a subject — is that appropriate — and judicial independence and all of that was discussed.

DP:        Did Archie Simonson ever try to justify the remarks that he made?

MK:       Yes. Always. Always.

DP:        Indicating that a victim has responsibility with respect to --?

MK:      He also said he was just trying to protect women so that they understood, basically, I guess, how uncontrollable male's urges are — I think that's part of what he was saying. I hate to speak for him.

DP:        When the campaigning was over and you got to election day, can you describe the election, the actual election?

MK:       Do you know where I spent the day?

DP:        No.

MK:       In the Cave of the Mounds. Under the earth.

DP:        Okay.

MK:       Because I never, ever thought I was going to win. So I was girding my loins to be graceful and nice in defeat. Then we came home and there was a gathering at a dear friend's home and one of my campaign chairs was calling our house — he was down at the City-County Building where the votes were being counted — and finally he said, get over there, you’ve won. We've won is what he said. We've won. And that was true. It was very, very much of a group effort.

DP:        So you had a gathering on election evening to watch the returns come in.

MK:       Well, to — yeah, I guess, but I didn't go over there until I was sure that I had won.

DP:        All right.

MK:       And then when we came, then my supporters, many of them were on the front porch and they started jumping up and down and yelling and cheering and broke the front porch.

DP:        Okay (laughs).

MK:       We had no money left to pay my poor friend for that porch (laughs).

DP:        What do you remember as far as the media that was waiting for you that evening?

MK:       ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS. And all the cameras were there. This is on Jefferson Street in Madison. And I was whisked inside because Barbara Walters was on the telephone waiting to talk to me. I mean, it was, it was wild, you know. The next day, on the front page, is a picture of me and a picture of Archie and it was quite a media circus.

DP:        It was a news story that got attention around the world, isn't that right?

MK:      Actually, it did. Someone sent me a clipping from the International Herald Tribune and one from the New York Times and Time magazine's international version and there we were. Yeah.

DP:        So you celebrated that you won the recall election —

MK:       Yes, we did.

DP:        And how long did it take then for you to recover and get sworn in as a successor?

MK:       I had ten days to close my law practice, recover from the campaign and think about what I would do as a judge. So it was very intense, very intense. And, of course, I had not been able to go to judicial college, which does a pretty job of training you and I was thinking about — before I came to today's meeting — because I was elected in September, judicial college is always in August, I had to sit almost a full year before I got that training and there was no such thing as mentoring back then so I just — learned on the job. You helped a lot, as a I recall, Dale (laughs). Now what do I do?

DP:        So, in ten days you got sworn in as Dane County's first female judge, correct?

MK:       Right. The chief judge, his clerk told me later, was going into the courtroom to swear me in and he said "Now, who's this little girl I’m making a judge today."

DP:        That was a Dane County Circuit Court judge that said that, correct?

MK:       Yeah, our chief judge, yeah.

DP:        Where was the swearing in ceremony? Where did it take place?

MK:       It was in one of the biggest courtrooms in the City-County Building, but everybody couldn't get in. Very full.

DP:        Big turnout to see that swearing in ceremony.

MK:       Right.

DP:        At that time you were a Dane County judge.

MK:       Yeah, we were county judges back then. We didn't switch to circuit until the next year.

DP:        And, you were Branch 7, is that right?

MK:       Branch 3.

DP:        Branch 3. And, at that time was there an assignment where you specialized in any area of the law?

MK:      Well, we didn't — Judge Brunner did juvenile and so unless there was a special instance which must have occurred for Judge Simonson to have done it, but usually the regular branches which I was didn't do juvenile, and probate was handled by a different branch, but otherwise we did — county courts are at a lower level and so I was for less than a year, where we did misdemeanors, we did preliminary hearings, we did divorces, we did smaller damages, civil cases, landlord-tenant, kind of the general jurisdiction. Parking tickets, speeding tickets, all of that stuff.

DP:        That was the docket that you had —

MK:       Right.

DP         -- as a Dane County judge?

MK:       And we did initial appearances. We rotated that, so — you really got to see the community. You got to see a lot of the community.

DP:        As the first female judge wearing a robe, did you have any experiences where disrespect was shown to you by the people that appeared before you because you were female?

MK:       Well, people would call me "sir" but I don’t think they meant it in disrespect. I think it was just someone sitting in black robes in an elevated position. I think that was natural, and so I never got my hackles up about that. It was said more by lawyers than members of the public.

DP:        And what were your observations as far as how you were treated by male lawyers that appeared before you?

MK:      Somewhat disdainful. Initially. Initially. You know, you had to prove your chops. But, I did have one lawyer, and this was after l’d been on the bench awhile, in a civil case, and I was about to issue a ruling in the middle of a jury trial, that he finally realized would basically gut his case. So I leaned back and inhaled and he rushed up to the bench in front of the jury and put his hands over my hands and he fancied himself quite a handsome chap — and looked longingly into my eyes and said “please judge, I beg of you, please you can't do this to me.” I don't think he would he have done that to a male judge. (laughs)

DP:        (laughs) At least not the holding the hands.

MK:       Not the holding the hands.

DP:        And, notwithstanding the longing look in your eyes and holding your hands, did you make

MK:       He lost.

DP:        -- the adverse ruling?

MK:       He lost. (laughs)

DP:        How long were you on the bench?

MK:       Almost 30 years. A few months short of 30 years.

DP:        How many elections did you go through?

MK:       Well -

DP:        Usually it's every seven years, is that right?  

MK: Six years. I had to go through another election the year after I was elected. You can do the math, Mr. Peterson, like you used to.

DP:        In your first election a year after being elected, were you opposed?

MK:       Never was opposed in any of the elections.

DP:        So you went through a number of election cycles and ran unopposed each time?

MK:       Right. Right.

DP:        Do you recall any time -- did Archie Simonson ever appear before you as a lawyer on the bench?

MK:      The funny one is — he had a case, I believe it was a homicide by intoxicated use. And somehow the blood sample had gotten destroyed. I worked very hard, I was pregnant with twins at the time, I remember, and had a procedure done in the hospital, I'm working on this decision and I decided in his client's favor. Memorandum decision. A couple weeks later he came up to me in the corridor, "Well, judge, that was a very good decision you issued in my case." "Thank you, Archie." "Yes, (pause) who wrote it?" (laughs) Always the diplomat.

DP:        But there were instances when he appeared before you as a practicing lawyer after that?

MK:       Yes. It was never very comfortable.

DP:        Did he ever ask to recuse you?

MK:       No.

DP:        So he felt comfortable that you could be fair?

MK:       I cannot speak for that. I don’t know. He didn't ask me to recuse myself.

DP:        Good. Can you give me a description of some of the memorable cases that you remember handling as a judge over 30 years?

MK:       Yeah. I’m glad that you gave me a chance to —you, there's so —we could do this for days.

DP:        That's right.

MK:      The case, I think, that had the most gratifying outcome for me was a juvenile case. I was in juvenile many, many years, and I was presiding judge for many, many years. That's sort of where I came from to the bench. This was a case involving a mother who had five children all of whom I took custody of and put in foster homes because she was obviously not doing well as a mother. In the interim, she managed to have another baby and begged to be given another chance and show that she could do it with this baby, and we put — we thought also to put supports in place for her to give it a try, but then without telling the social worker, she moved in with this man and we discovered that he had a criminal record and his criminal record was repeat pedophilia with infants.

DP:        Okay.

MK:       Couldn't have been much more on point there. So we immediately set a hearing. She, of course, did not show up and took off with him and the infant and we knew she had gone, I believe it was to relatives in Iowa. Everybody was very disturbed and very upset and so I decided to issue a capias order for her — the infant's return — I didn't care where she returned — and I was advised by the District Attorney, quite properly, that I was not following the interstate compact which has very, very detailed protocols and is very cumbersome and takes a long time to execute. I said "We just can't wait, I'm issuing to see what happens." They decided to honor it in Iowa, even though it didn't meet any of those protocols, got the baby, brought the baby back. The baby ended up in one of the best foster homes ever in Dane County, they ended up adopting her, which I had something to do with. When she graduated from high school, I was invited to her graduation. When she graduated from college, I was invited to that graduation. She came to me and I went through her file with her. And I recently went to her wedding and then I got the birth announcement of her son — I mean, we're still in touch. But very gratified. Very gratified.

DP:        So it was a juvenile story with a happy ending.

MK:       Every once in a while you get one of those.

DP:        So that's a very memorable case for you.

MK:       Very memorable case for me.

DP:        My outline asks me for you to describe one of the most memorable low points of your practice.

MK:       I didn't read that part. Well, whenever you — I have to tell you that some of the sentencings and some of the dispositions really are very difficult. Really very difficult and sometimes you can't do what you want because you simply don't have the resources at your disposal, or because of how the law has changed and then you wonder whether you've done the right thing. I remember after l’d been retired about two months, I woke up in the middle of the night and my hands weren’t clenched, my shoulders weren't tight, because I wasn't dreaming about that stuff. You always second guess yourself. You know, not knowing whether you’ve done the right thing.

DP:        So you took very seriously the responsibility and the impact on the people's lives that appeared before you?

MK:       Yeah. Yes.

DP:        Including waking up in the middle night?

MK:       Oh, yeah. Just being tense all the time.

DP:        Now we're at the part of the interview where I want you to look back over your career

MK:       Yes.

DP:        -- and looking at what it was like when you started in the late 1960s and what it is today, what are the most significant changes that you’ve seen over your career with respect to legal developments? Substantive, procedural, new areas of law?

MK:      Okay. I mentioned some of that in the paper that just as I was being elected, the woman's movement was clicking into gear and we started to view things differently such as sexual assault. It was called rape. That was the only way it was referred to and at that — in the earlier days, viewed as a crime of passion. Well, people have learned since, you know, that it's a crime of violence and it's viewed that way now. It used to be — sexual assault used to be crimes against morality; it's now crimes against the person. So that whole thing and — I worked very hard to get the gender bias task force going where we suddenly got away from using the male pronouns in our laws and in our writing, and I really do think that makes a difference, where you begin to believe that the law applies to everybody. The revision that I worked so hard on to the children's code was gutted about ten years later by a, in my opinion, a very mean-spirited and counterproductive way of viewing kids: that kids really didn't have rights, they lost their right to a jury trial, in delinquency I'm speaking, no longer was the best interest of the child, the polestar of what we were doing now, protection of the community was right up there, and all sorts of other get tough — of course, we took people, we put 17-year olds automatically into adult court, we lowered the age of waiver and in some offenses, practically out of the womb you can be waived into adult court, so — and truth-in-sentencing — the change, I hope it's swinging back the pendulum finally — the lack of — we've lost the belief in rehabilitation. And all we did was lock people up and hope that somehow that was going to reform them. That got very punitive. And that's part of what I was referring to when I said I didn't have alternatives that I would like to have had — you know, those are some of the differences. I have not had enough experience if you want something procedural to really know if change over to the Daubert standard is going to make a difference. I had, you know, the few cases that l’ve sat on since then, I really haven't seen it make a big difference, but those are the kind of big things — the more recognition of equality, but then the really hard-nosed response to crime and those in our society who fail to abide by all our strictures.

DP:        What have you observed as far as the most significant evolution with respect to judicial administration? How did it change in the 30 years that you were on the bench as far as running a court?

MK:       Well, as I referred briefly, in ‘78 there were no more county courts. We all became circuit courts which was a huge change. I mean, it was nice. Kept me from having to run another election. Then I dealt with everything that came before state court as opposed to the limited jurisdiction of county court. And the administration of everything, I think the role of the chief judge and the court administrator became far more important, and we got court administrators. We didn't have court administrators before this change. So, all of it, I think, was good until things started to deteriorate across the street.

DP:        As a judge, did you find that you had adequate support with your staff and your help or was it always --?

MK:       It was always short. It wasn't as bad as Milwaukee where some of judges took to cleaning the bathrooms and things, but we were always short-shifted and even — we got less and less help. We used to have law clerks, then they became staff attorneys and then they got divided among three or four judges to one staff attorney which is not a lot of help, particularly in Dane County where we get all the administrative appeals. There's an awful lot of decision writing and you really need some help if you're going to have an active caseload. So that was always difficult.

DP:        And what did you observe as far as how your services as a judge changed with respect to technology?

MK:      Reluctantly. (laughs) Obviously, being able to do research online has been invaluable and I actually did get a little bit good at that, so that was a major time-saving device. I don't know about CCAP. I guess that's a two-edged sword. I don't know what else to refer to — well, we can show things in court, you know, fancy —

DP:        Trials are conducted differently?        

MK:       Yeah, yeah.

DP:        The lawyers have a lot more resources available?

MK:       True.

DP         To sum up, how would you rate overall your judicial career?

MK:       How would I rate it?

DP:        Right. How would you rate it as far as how satisfying - Did you can make the right decision when you decided to run for judge? And was it a satisfying career as a judge?

MK:       Overall perspective is it was a very satisfying career. The thing — I loved the variety. I loved the contact with the people. I think I would not have been a good appellate judge although I think I have the scholarly background and the ability to do it. I would have just missed the contact with people so much. And every day was different. It never became humdrum or boring. Sure, there are some menial kinds of tasks — signing bench warrants and things that are not exciting and there are some cases that are not all that exciting — but every case means something important to someone. As I sit and review it, as I was before coming to see you today, my hope is — and there is no way of doing this empirically — is that maybe I did some good while I was on the bench. I don't know. I hope.

DP:        And what would you want most for lawyers in the future to know about your career?

MK:       About my career?

DP:        Right.

MK:       You mean other than the obvious, you know, the historical stuff?

DP:        Right. Other than the obvious.

MK:      I would — I would hope that —one of the things that I don't like about the new courthouse — this is not the answer you expected — is that it is much more isolating than the old crummy City-County Building. Lawyers used to stop in and chat. Even people who had appeared before me, I would have contact with them. That informality is gone now. We don't even see our colleagues that much if they're not on the same floor. And I guess that I am old school because I fancy myself really a servant of the people and I think you need the contact with the people to be a good servant. So, that's it.

DP:        Well, now I'm going to do my closing and I want to thank you for taking the time and sharing your experiences with me and with future readers. We'll have a transcript prepared of this interview and we'll send it to you for proofreading before it becomes part of the oral history project. Unless you have something else to add, I will note that the time is now 12:03 and I'm going to be shutting off the recording. Thank you.

MK:       Thank you. Couldn't be a better interviewer.