What was behind Judge Dale Wolfs erratic behavior during the Donald Blom trial?
maybe even a little troubling that day in September 1999 when Larry Oakes saw the first of a series of notices taped to the walls of the Carlton County courthouse. Sixth District Circuit Judge Dale A. Wolf personally had seen to it that the notes were posted there, and in places throughout the building where anyone passing by couldn’t possibly have missed them. “They were like general postings to the public, courthouse staff, anyone who happened to be in the courthouse,” said Oakes. The Star Tribune reporter covers Northern Minnesota for the Minneapolis newspaper, and Oakes was there that day, as he had been for much of the past three months, covering the first-degree murder case of Donald Albin Blom. Wolf’s note, recalls Oakes, said that being a judge in the case had become a terrific burden. “He was asking the public’s patience in sorting it out,” Oakes says. No one could have known it at the time, but what was happening before the reporter’s eyes was part of an unfolding story in wh
