FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

A Direct Question Deserves a Direct Answer

If elected, my term will be ten years long. The election is a job interview and the voters are the employer. I have been asked many good questions during my election campaign. Here are a few that come up regularly, along with my answers. If you have a question that’s not answered on this page, please contact me so I can answer it. I wouldn’t vote for a candidate who can’t answer my questions and I don’t expect anyone else to, either.

What is this election about?

This is a nonpartisan election for a seat on the North Dakota Supreme Court, which is the highest court in the state. It has the final word on legal questions in North Dakota. It also manages the court system, works on committees, and handles licensing and discipline for attorneys. I posted a five-part series on Facebook explaining the job in more detail:

What does “nonpartisan” mean?

For everyone, it means that no political party labels appear on the ballot. For me, it goes far deeper. I am genuinely nonpartisan. I have no political endorsements or baggage and I owe no political debts. If elected, my decisions will be guided by the law as written and the constitution, not by the policy goals of any political group or allegiance to any politician. For me, this is more than a technicality. It goes to the very heart of judicial integrity and independence.

Why should voters care about this judicial election?

The North Dakota Supreme Court has the final word on the legal questions that shape daily life in our state. Most people don’t go to court, but the decisions of our courts affect us all. Your property rights, inheritance, oil and gas royalty payments, parenting time arrangements, insurance coverage, partnership agreements, medical bills, and so many other things have been, or will be, tested in court. The relationship between the government and the people it serves is often tested in court. Every North Dakotan has a stake in whether those decisions are made carefully, consistently, and by justices who understand what their decisions mean to real people.

This election is also about respect for people’s work. Before the Supreme Court hears a case, lawyers and parties have worked hard to prepare and present the case, the district judge and jury have worked hard to make a decision, and the clerk and other court staff have worked hard to maintain the record and keep the court schedule. My experience working as a lawyer has taught me a profound respect for how hard those people work, and as a justice I will honor their work. If the law requires me to make a decision that overturns the hard work of others, I will explain the reasoning clearly. Sometimes a court throws out weeks of trial and years of preparation and offers as little as a half dozen words of explanation. They worked hard and they deserve better.

Are you a conservative? A liberal? A Democrat? A Republican?

I am genuinely nonpartisan. I’m not hiding behind that label. I’m living it. For two decades, I have represented clients across the political spectrum and across many areas of law. I never let my personal political views determine whose side I am on or how I handle the case. I have no political endorsements and no political debts. A judge who owes his job to the support of a political party or politicians has to decide which branch of the party he answers to. I answer only to the constitution, the written law, and the people of North Dakota.

What is your platform?

My platform for election is simple: our Supreme Court is at its best when its five justices bring different perspectives to each case so they can understand things from every angle before making a decision. I have a broad and distinctive perspective, earned from two decades of representing real people in court across the state. I learned about most areas of the law by going to court and standing next to people whose property, business, livelihood, or future was on the line.

My philosophy on the law is also simple: “We the People” wrote the constitution, our elected representatives write and enforce the laws, and our courts decide cases. Politics belong to the people and politicians. They have no place in a court of law. The written words have meaning and, if a judge has to search too far beyond those words to find a meaning he likes, then it’s probably not the meaning the people intended.

My approach to the work of a justice is to listen and understand every argument, write an opinion that gives clear guidance to the lawyers and trial courts, engage sincerely with what the parties argue, and write in a way that people will enjoy reading.

My integrity means more than any election.

What sets you apart from the other candidate?

From the outset, I want to make it clear that I am not running against anyone. I am running for a Supreme Court that includes the broad, practical perspective I have earned through two decades of representing people across North Dakota. The current justices came from a variety of types of legal practice, each of which is valuable to the Court’s work. But none of them came from the intense and broad litigation practice that I have.

I have been counsel of record in over 600 civil cases across North Dakota, at least one in each of the 8 judicial districts of the state. I have handled dozens of Supreme Court cases and jury trials, no two alike. The perspective I have earned through representing my clients for two decades is missing from the Court. I am running to add it.

Are there any Supreme Court cases you would have decided differently?

Yes. As a lawyer, my work includes reviewing published opinions of the Supreme Court as they are announced and, later, when studying for a new case I am working on. Along the way, I have seen cases where I think the decision was wrong or the explanation for the decision was wrong, incomplete, or a cause of uncertainty in other areas of law. I do not want to call anyone out publicly or get lost in the weeds, so I will not list judge or case names in this FAQ. However, here are a few common themes:

  • Every word in a statute has meaning. I recently read a Supreme Court decision in which the majority and dissent both missed a critical word in the statute, even though it is a word that would have led to one of those opinions being half as long to reach the same answer.
  • Every statute has a purpose. But sometimes lack of experience working with a statute in the field obscures the purpose, which gets lost in the analysis. If there are two reasonable meanings of a statute but only one of them upholds the purpose of the statute, that is the right meaning.
  • Court opinions are an expression of the law. Often, the Supreme Court announces what a statute means. Lawyers, judges, and others follow that meaning in all their future cases. If the Court gets the meaning wrong, the Legislature meets every two years and can amend the law so its meaning is more clear. If several Legislative Sessions go by without an amendment, then it should be safe to assume the Court got it right. The Supreme Court should not easily overturn its own opinions about what a statute means. (Constitutional questions are different.)
  • Court judgments are meant to be final. If two people go to court to settle their differences, the decision should be final between those people. If a third person later claims an interest in the case, the courts should work hard to protect the finality of the original judgment. The original parties should not have to re-litigate their entire dispute.
  • If a jury decides that someone’s conduct was wrong, the Supreme Court should not second-guess that decision. The jury heard days or weeks of live testimony and earned the right to reach a verdict. Judges should not substitute their own judgment for that of the citizens on the jury.
  • Sometimes the law requires a court to overturn a jury decision. But if the parties, lawyers, district judge, and jury worked hard for weeks or years, each justice owes it to them to work just as hard to explain why their decision was wrong.

If you want to know more, please feel free to contact me.

Who are your constituents?

Every North Dakotan is a constituent of the elected Supreme Court justices. Both the federal and state constitutions begin with the same three words: We the People. The constitution is the employee handbook. The people who wrote it are the employer. If elected, I will stand before North Dakotans and take an oath to them, solemnly swearing to uphold their constitution.

What is your position on [hot-button political issue]?

No judicial candidate should answer this type of question. No judge should answer this type of question unless it is the actual question in a case before the judge. If I tell voters today how I would rule on something, then if it comes before me in a real case I will have prejudged the case before I know what the evidence shows or hear the legal arguments. If someone comes before me in court, they deserve a judge who approaches the case with an open mind.

If one of these issues does come before me, you can count on me leaving my personal preferences at home, listening to the arguments and evidence, making sure I understand them all, and deciding the case according to the constitution and written law.

What do you think about Artificial Intelligence in the courts?

My undergraduate degree is in Computer Science. I still stay on top of developments in that field. I am not afraid of technology, and I appreciate having cutting-edge technology available to make my job better. But I am very cautious about over-reliance on technology or imposing bleeding-edge technology on people in ways that take the joy or humanity out of their work.

For example, everything said in court is recorded. You can request a transcript of your hearing, which gives you a written version of what was said that you can study and refer to in an appeal. There are some who think that these transcripts should be written by AI rather than a manual transcription by a human. I recently received an AI-generated transcript, and the results are not encouraging. The male judge’s words were placed in the middle of a female attorney’s statements, even though they had separate microphones. Party names were misspelled throughout, even though they were in the title of the case.

Even if AI transcripts get better, there will be times when words spoken in court are hard to transcribe. Some people mumble, use uncommon words, talk over each other, and so on. The remaining human transcriptionists will only handle the cases the AI cannot: mumbled testimony, crosstalk, made-up words. The rewarding work, clear and eloquent arguments, the next Cicero or Martin Luther King Jr., will all have been automated away. That is not the path to making the job better.

What historical judges do you admire?

There are two who come to mind most often: Chief Justice John Marshall and Justice Antonin Scalia. Their service to the United States Supreme Court was separated by many years and many developments in our nation, and each earned a place on this short list in his own way.

Chief Justice Marshall can be credited with our Supreme Court working the way it does now. He studied law at the College of William & Mary in Virginia, which now bears his name along with that of George Wythe, the first law professor in America. On the Supreme Court, he is best-known for Marbury v. Madison, the early case that most clearly confirms what the Framers intended: That the courts are bound by the Constitution and should not give effect to laws that the Constitution does not allow. But he also gets credit for the Court issuing a single, majority opinion in most cases. Before that, each justice wrote his own opinion and other judges, lawyers, and other citizens would have to divine the meaning of the law from these separate opinions. Those early cases are still studied by law students today, and I doubt many of them enjoy it. John Marshall made the law easier for us all to understand.

Justice Antonin Scalia served much more recently. I learned about his intellect from a few angles while in law school. We went to a barbecue at a judge’s house and the judge talked about when he took an introductory law school class from then-Professor Scalia, who was “scary smart.” One of my professors had clerked for Justice Scalia, and his broad understanding of the law, its history, and its theory made it clear that he had learned from the best minds. Ultimately, there are three things that I deeply admire about Justice Scalia. His opinions, particularly his dissents, are masterfully written works that people want to read even if they don’t know about the cases. His method of following the text while respecting precedent set a very high standard for leaving policy questions to the political branches of government without undermining the work of prior courts. And, above all, his close friendship with Justice Ginsburg is a beacon for all Americans, reminding us that we can disagree on nearly everything but still treat each other with genuine respect and affection.

I should include an honorable mention for Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, who succeeded Henry Kissinger as Chancellor of the College of William & Mary while I was enrolled in law school there. I have kept, and sometimes still laugh about the story behind, the picture that my classmate and I took with Justice O’Connor.

None of my answers to this question is about politics or ideology. If I took the time to read every opinion by any particular justice of the U.S. Supreme Court or the North Dakota Supreme Court, I would find plenty to agree with and plenty to disagree with. I point to Chief Justice Marshall because he was a true leader who left the Court in better shape than he found it, and to Justice Scalia because he consistently wrote opinions worth reading, stayed in his lane, and demonstrated what principled disagreement looks like.

How can I help your campaign?

First and foremost, vote on Election Day. This is not the only election that matters, and every vote counts.

Second, tell a few people about Johnson for Justice and the Supreme Court election.

Third, consider ways that you can contribute to the campaign. Time, talents, and dollars are all important in my effort to spread the message that North Dakota deserves a Supreme Court that understands North Dakotans’ legal issues at a practical level.

Can I put up a yard sign?

Yes, please. Contact us to let us know where and we will get one to you.

Where and how do I vote?

North Dakota’s 2026 election is split into the Primary on June 9 and the General on November 3. You can find more about where to go, their hours, what information you need to bring with you, and a sample ballot on the Secretary of State website: https://vote.nd.gov.

Where can I learn more?

I have answered a few candidate surveys and participated in several interviews. While I may not list them all here, each should help to understand who I am, why I’m running in this election, and why voters should choose me.