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Gov. Dayton appointed Appeals Court Judge Margaret Chutich to the state Supreme Court.

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Chutich is Minnesota’s first openly gay Supreme Court Justice.

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Dayton appointed District Judge Diane Bratvold to Chutich’s spot on the appeals court.

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Both Chutich and Bratvold will have to stand for election in 2018.

Gov. Mark Dayton on Friday appointed Appeals Court Judge Margaret Chutich to the Minnesota Supreme Court, adding a gifted tennis player and fluent Croatian speaker to the state’s highest bench.

Chutich is also the first openly gay member of the high court and will join a court with two other female justices.

“If there are gay attorneys, gay people thinking about going to law school, I think it’s important that they know there aren’t barriers to their dreams,” said Chutich, joined by her partner of 20 years and wife of two years, Allina Health CEO Penny Wheeler, and her 16-year-old daughter, Olivia, at the announcement.

With Chutich’s appointment, Minnesota will be one of a small handful of states to have an openly gay member on its Supreme Court. The decision won national praise.

“The judiciary system works best when it is a reflection of America,” said Sarah Warbelow, Human Rights Campaign legal director. “Judge Chutich is an outstandingly qualified nominee, and her nomination will be an inspiration to young LGBT lawyers across Minnesota and beyond.”

But Dayton and others said Chutich, who grew up in Anoka and now lives in Minneapolis, would be an excellent justice no matter her demographic information. Dayton and chair of the commission on judicial selection Lee Sheehy praised her as a sharp, hard-working and excellent jurist who has the ability to forge understanding and the strength to dissent when needed.

Chutich — a former assistant dean at the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs, deputy attorney general in the Minnesota attorney general’s office and assistant U.S. attorney in Minnesota — will also bring another talent to the bench:

“Her writing is luminous. I can tell without looking at who writes a Court of Appeals opinion; I can tell within the first couple of paragraphs that it’s Judge Chutich,” said Supreme Court Justice David Lillehaug.

Lillehaug knows Chutich well. She worked in the U.S. attorney’s office for Minnesota when he was leading the office. As U.S. attorney, he also hired the woman Chutich will replace on the Supreme Court: Justice Wilhelmina Wright.

Wright was confirmed by the U.S. Senate this week to become a federal judge for the District of Minnesota. Wright was a Dayton appointee to the state Supreme Court.

Wright and Chutich’s connections go further.

Chutich, 57, was a finalist for the Hennepin County District Court before her appeals court appointment and was twice a finalist for state Supreme Court justice before her appointment Friday. She said Friday that her unfulfilled desires for court positions nearly made her stop trying. But Wright kept her going.

“I had almost thought that I was going to do other things in life, and Mimi was one of those people who took me by the hand and said, ‘Margaret, you know, why aren’t you applying for this opening on the Court of Appeals?’ ” Chutich said. She did apply and won that spot.

Chutich’s elevation to the Supreme Court created an opening on the appeals court. Dayton also filled that vacancy Friday.

He appointed 4th District Judge Diane Bratvold, a former shareholder at Briggs and Morgan and partner at the Rider Bennett firms, to that at-large seat.

Bratvold, too, has connections to Minnesota’s lauded jurists. She noted that former Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Magnuson and former Supreme Court Justice Sam Hanson joined Friday’s audience. Hanson works at Briggs and Morgan and Magnuson, now at the Robins Kaplan firm, is a former partner at Rider Bennett.

To those former members of the court, Bratvold said: “You believed in me all along the way and encouraged me. And that gave me the strength that helped me every minute of every day.”

In Minnesota, gubernatorial court appointments do not require legislative confirmation, but members of the bench do have to stand for election before voters. Because both Chutich and Bratvold are filling unexpired terms, they would have to stand for election during the next election period at least one year after they take the bench, according to the state constitution. For both jurists, their election dates fall in 2018.