Margaret H. Chutich, Associate Justice 2016-2024

Margaret H. Chutich served on the Minnesota Supreme Court from 2016-2024

Margaret Helen Chutich was born in Minnesota on June 18, 1958, to parents Joseph and Marlys Morrill Chutich. She has 3 siblings. Justice Chutich's father owned a local hardware store in Anoka, Minnesota. Her mother taught her tennis and basketball. Her grandmother even played college field hockey at Carleton and the U of M!

Justice Chutich attended Anoka High School where she played basketball & tennis. She won the second Minnesota Girls' State High School Tennis Championship in 1975. She also played clarinet and piano. She graduated in 1976.

Justice Chutich attended 1 year of college at Stanford where she played on the basketball team, traveled for a year, then attended the University of Minnesota where played tennis and studied history, receiving an athletic scholarship in 1979. She studied abroad at University of Zagreb, where she learned to speak Croatian. She graduated from the U of M in 1980. She then attended the University of Michigan law school and received her J.D. cum laude in 1984.

After law school, Justice Chutich clerked for Judge Diana E. Murphy, United States District Court, District of Minnesota. She then worked in private practice at the firms Tanick & Heins and Opperman Heins & Paquin. She served as an Assistant US Attorney, Deputy Attorney General of Minnesota, and Assistant Dean at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, before being appointed to the Court of Appeals by Governor Mark Dayton in 2011 and then elevated to the State Supreme Court, again by Governor Mark Dayton in 2016.

Justice Chutich married Penny Wheeler in 2013, once gay marriage became legal, but had an earlier commitment ceremony in 1997. They had an adopted daughter, Olivia.

Justice Chutich retired from the Minnesota Supreme Court on July 31, 2024.