Judge Nicole J. Starr, Ramsey County Judicial Officer
Publicly celebrated for compassion and LGBTQ+ inclusion - yet in Strickland v. Ramsey County, she validated falsified judicial orders, denied a disabled queer litigant court access, and weaponized procedure to silence oversight.
Key Context
- August 19 order validating altered/unsigned documents
- November 13 hearing notice mailed 5 days late with no purpose listed
- November 17 returned filing citing outdated address
- Failure to comply with Nov 19 COA directive
- Fee waiver extension denied despite disability + prior waiver
Why It Matters
Judge Nicole Starr embodies the split-screen of modern justice: a public persona built on equity, empathy, and inclusion - and a courtroom record that strips those same protections from the very people she claims to champion.
Her refusal to correct altered documents, her normalization of unsigned orders, and her dismissal of ADA barriers escalate a bureaucratic malfunction into a civil-rights violation. When a judge celebrated for uplifting marginalized people directly harms a queer, disabled woman in a mixed-race family, the hypocrisy becomes its own form of violence.
The record shows a pattern: when her court is watched, she retaliates; when errors surface, she seals the door. Transparency becomes a trigger - and accountability becomes a threat.
The August 19 Finding of Facts
On August 19, 2025, Judge Starr issued a Finding of Facts that denied Plaintiff's motion to vacate, invoking collateral estoppel while treating unsigned, altered, and re-dated judicial orders as valid.
She did not dispute the defects. She did not require authentication. Instead, she embedded the falsified documents deeper into the official record, making the County's misconduct unreviewable.
The ruling closed the door on truth, not because truth was found - but because truth was inconvenient.
Silencing by Procedure
By August, Plaintiff had already raised ADA accommodation issues and had been repeatedly denied meaningful access. Yet Starr's analysis treated these barriers as invisible, disallowing them entirely under procedural doctrines. The effect was not neutrality but exclusion - a systemic pattern familiar to disabled queer litigants in Minnesota courts.
Finality without authenticity is not justice - it is foreclosure. It is the judicial equivalent of a locked door that should never have closed.
November: The Retaliatory Spiral
Nov 13 Hearing Notice
Starr issued a hearing notice on November 13, 2025 - but did not mail it until November 18. Plaintiff received it two days before the hearing, with no explanation of purpose, and the packet included the petitioner's confidential copy. The timing and contents made attending meaningfully impossible.
Nov 17 Returned Motion for Clarification
On November 17, Starr's staff returned Plaintiff's already-accepted motion for clarification with a deficiency notice:
- It cited an outdated address never used by Plaintiff.
- It instructed Plaintiff to 'sign up for eService' - after the motion was accepted into the docket.
- The "deficiency" was manufactured at judicial discretion, with no legal basis.
Nov 19 COA Directive
The Minnesota Court of Appeals issued an order on November 19 granting Plaintiff until December 1 to file an informal brief and explicitly directing the district court to clarify fee-waiver issues.
Starr ignored that directive. She did nothing to correct the record or comply with appellate instruction.
Your Nov 23 + Nov 24 Filings
Plaintiff refiled the motion for clarification on November 23 - this time demanding that Starr answer for the document defects and procedural irregularities.
On November 24, Plaintiff filed the informal brief with the Court of Appeals. It was accepted six minutes later - confirmation that the appellate court, unlike Starr, recognized its validity.
Fee Waiver Hypocrisy
Both Plaintiff and Madeline Lee had previously been granted fee waivers. But when Plaintiff - a disabled SSI recipient - sought a short extension, Starr denied it without explanation.
A judge who publicly advocates disability inclusion knowingly blocked a disabled woman's access to the court. A judge who champions LGBTQ+ rights stripped a queer litigant of the very protections she claims to defend.
The cruelty was not bureaucratic - it was personal.
Public Persona vs. Private Conduct
Starr's professional biography reads like a justice-themed ad campaign: Lambda Legal. Human Rights Commission. Diversity awards. Speeches about compassion.
But none of that warmth appeared in her treatment of Plaintiff - whose identity (queer, disabled, mixed-race family) aligns with the very groups Starr performs allyship for in public.
"People are good, want to be good... given enough help and tools, will absolutely do the right thing." - Judge Nicole Starr
Except when confronted with her own institution's failures. Then the tools disappear, the help evaporates, and the humanity she praises goes silent.
Surveillance logs show that both Starr and attorney Kyle Manderfeld accessed Onion Madder's public OSINT archive in the same week the waiver denial and contempt filings appeared. Within forty-eight hours of their visits, procedural retaliation intensified. The timing reads as reaction, not coincidence.
Pattern of Leniency and Insulation
MCRO reflects Judge Starr's own minor speeding conviction (25-VB-24-567), resolved with a standard administrative fine. A trivial matter - but a telling contrast.
When insiders stumble, the system moves softly. When marginalized litigants falter, the hammer falls.
December 29, 2025 - The Performance of "Protection"
On December 29, 2025 Starr held a motion hearing in a civil HRO case. The petitioner and her attorney watched as Judge Nicole Starr transformed it into something resembling a criminal proceeding - without charges, Miranda rights, or due process.
Starr abruptly introduced a defense attorney "because this is a contempt hearing and you may need protection," framing intimidation as benevolence. When Appellant objected that this was neither appropriate nor requested, Starr continued to press, insisting this was a "fee waiver process."
She then forced the case into an evidentiary posture the Appellant did not seek, repeatedly treating silence or confusion as consent - even after being told Appellant's father was gravely ill and she would be out of state. Compassion was performed publicly. Coercion was practiced in real time.
After nearly an hour of escalation, the "emergency" remedy collapsed into a narrow injunction so trivial that it exposed the entire spectacle for what it was: pressure, optics, and control.
Starr publicly markets compassion. In court, she weaponized fear while calling it care.
The transcript will document how this unfolded - and who was in the room watching.