What's right is not always popular, what's popular is not always right.
Decades before he would head the Minnesota Court of Appeals, Edward J. Cleary lived out the meaning of that adage when he stood before the nation's highest court to argue a cause hidden behind an ugly veneer.
In 1990, Robert Viktora, a white teenager, was accused of burning a cross on the lawn of a black family in St. Paul. Viktora, 17, was charged with "bias disorderly conduct" under a city ordinance.
A public defender with Ramsey County, Cleary examined the case and knew what he was about to do would not be popular. He argued in court on Viktora's behalf that the ordinance violated the free speech clause of the First Amendment. Cleary took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1992 unanimously struck down the ordinance.
The 39-year-old son of a former Ramsey County prosecutor was not hailed as a hero.
"I tried to explain it to people, but all they could see is the cross, and I get that," Cleary said in an interview in his appellate court chambers in St. Paul. "They'd ask 'Why are you risking your career this way?' but I just did what I had to do."
The case of R.A.V. vs. City of St. Paul is still a staple of constitutional law courses, and one of the earliest defining moments in the career of Cleary, 60, who will be sworn in Monday as the seventh Chief Judge of the Court of Appeals, as it marks its 30th anniversary.
Cleary's colleagues say a career defined by his convictions is what suits him to run a 19-judge court that hears 2,400 cases a year.