Ex-Havre officer seeks seat on state high court

Dirk Sandefur, a former Havre police officer and current district court judge hoping to be elected onto the Montana Supreme Court came back to the city he used to call home for a fundraiser at Triple Dog Brewing Co. Tuesday evening.

Retired and current police officers, area attorneys and judges, along with leaders in the community ranging from Mayor Tim Solomon and Police Chief Gabe Matosich to Montana State University-Northern Chancellor Greg Kegel were there.

"Thank you all for coming tonight, particularly those of you who don't know me and even those of you who do and came anyway," Sandefur said, causing a brief eruption of laughter.

Sandefur, who is now a district court judge from Great Falls, is a candidate in the nonpartisan race for seat 3 on the Montana Supreme Court. He hopes to succeed retiring Justice Patricia Cotter, who is not only supporting him, but was among those who encouraged him to enter the race.

The former cop turned judge said he is running because he wants to preserve the court as a body of fairness.

"Unlike the Legislature and the governor's office, the court is the only place at the highest level of state government where you can go and get a fair ruling on a case, based on the facts and the law without any particular agenda," Sandefur said.

He said that as these nonpartisan races for the court have become more politicized, individuals and cash-flush donor groups have tried to transform the court into a body that advances its own agenda.

Sandefur is a Great Falls native who came to Havre in the late 1980s, where for three years he worked as a police officer before resigning in 1990 and moving away to attend the University of Montana School of Law.

"When I got to law school, I found out that the world of law is far greater than criminal law and became interested in a wide variety of areas of the law," he said.

He then briefly worked for a private law firm and then as a public defender in Great Falls before taking a position as an assistant county attorney in Cascade County where he prosecuted criminal cases and advised the county on a variety of legal matters.

In 2002, Sandefur ran for a seat on the state District Court. He successfully ran for re-election in 2008 and 2014.

During that time, Sandefur said, he has been a substitute judge on several occasions, filling in for justices on the state's high court when a given justice has recused him- or herself or been otherwise unable to hear a case.

"As a state judge, I am the only person in this race who has handled every type of criminal case, every type of civil case from A to Z," Sandefur said.

His only opponent in the race is Kristen Gustafson Juras, an attorney from Great Falls.

Juras has 30 years practicing and writing about contractual and family and business law; guardianship, and water rights. She has also spent 15 years teaching law at the University of Montana School of Law.

"My opponent is a person who is a lawyer who doesn't have any sort of the kind of experience I have," he said. "She is not a courtroom lawyer. She is an office practiced attorney - never even tried or handled a large variety of the type of cases who come before the court."