The joy of Peter Albrecht is that everything about him has a humorous, offbeat spin to it. For example, in spite of all the horrendous criminal trials and controversial civil cases he has presided over in his 17 years of judging, the most mail he ever received was due to a brief note in C.J.’s column in the Minneapolis Star Tribune regarding one of his daughters hiding under his bench during voir dire. He confesses that this has happened a "few" times before and since while taking jury verdicts in the evening when his wife Nancy, a therapist, has been at work. After situating his two daughters, Ana (7) and Libby (5), under the bench with coloring books and crayons, he would ask the bailiff to bring in the jury, receive the verdict, and discharge the jury, without any of them being the wiser. So next time you see Judge Albrecht leaning down and talking to his shoes, you’ll know what’s happening.

Peter Albrecht is one of the few judges in Minnesota to have been first elected, then appointed. He was elected to the municipal bench when a group of "young turks" (including myself) decided that someone should challenge a particular judge. They asked Wood Foster to run, and he declined. They asked Peter to run, he quickly accepted, and Wood managed his campaign. He was endorsed by the Minneapolis Police Federation, Americans for Democratic Action, and the Minneapolis Tribune. (See what I mean about an offbeat spin?) He won. His appointment came later when Governor Perpich appointed him to the district bench in 1983, and he’s been reelected since.

Peter’s judicial career is roughly divided into thirds. One-third was spent on the municipal bench, one-third as juvenile court judge, and one-third mostly hearing civil and criminal cases on the district court bench. In spite of his strong commitment to making the juvenile justice system work, he voices frustration and regret that while on the juvenile bench he really didn’t see a lot of tough young offenders’ lives turn around. He is quick to add that he "enjoys what he’s doing now the most." "It’s one of two jobs—the other being a teacher—where you can make people stop chewing gum. Actually, you don’t even need to tell them yourself, you can ask an armed deputy sheriff to tell them."

Having received the second highest ratings by lawyers in the most recent HCBA Judicial Evaluation, Peter Albrecht is obviously well-respected as a judge. He is most proud, however, of his daughters, Ana and Libby, who have taken over a part of his life that music used to occupy. The girls keep him so busy, he laments, that he can hardly keep his eyes open until they go to bed. An accomplished guitarist and banjo player, Peter has favored folk music (e.g., Peter Seeger and the Weavers) for longer than the 20 years I’ve known him. Nowadays, the only chance he has to perform is at the annual Hennepin County Bar Benefit with a group consisting of Mary DuShane on fiddle, Jack Taylor on dobro guitar, and Doug Franzen on bass. (One can only note the coincidence that since Peter began serving on the benefit’s entertainment committee, he’s been invited back every year.) He will be starting Suzuki violin with Libby next fall and can then add the fiddle to a long list of stringed instruments he has mastered (and collects). The effect of the 1960s on Peter also carries over in his choice of transportation: he finally replaced his VW Beetle with what is now an aging Volvo wagon which, he says, "came along with the kids."

For many years while Judges Albrecht and Jonathan Lebedoff (now U.S. magistrate judge) walked to work together, residents of Lowry Hill could almost set their watches by them—well, at least by Judge Lebedoff standing on the corner waiting for Albrecht. Peter muses, "If it had been Lebedoff and Fitzgerald, they could have set their watches."

Peter Albrecht is a gentle judge whose great strength is his ability to put people at ease in what are often stressful, tense adversarial, even angry situations—and that goes for litigants and lawyers alike His good humor and his easy-going, considerate ways invariably calm the storm. Peter explained his approach as trying to treat defendants as he would wish to be treated in a doctor’s office. "Tell them what’s happening each step along the way; tell them if it’s going to hurt."