North Dakota's Supreme Court upheld a Dickinson man's conviction for defying an order in a child custody case, although one justice believes the judge who handled the matter should have disqualified himself.

Scott Stockert, who was found guilty in March 2003 of disobeying a judicial order, asserted during his Supreme Court appeal that Southwest District Judge Zane Anderson had a conflict of interest in his case.

An uncle of Stockert's former wife worked as Anderson's campaign manager in 2000, when Anderson defeated another incumbent judge, Maurice Hunke, for the Southwest District judgeship.

Anderson and Hunke had squared off that year after the Supreme Court eliminated Anderson's job as part of a legislatively required court consolidation plan. Anderson was assigned Stockert's case in June 2001, and Stockert filed a sworn statement the following month arguing that Anderson was prejudiced against him.

The court's majority opinion, written by Justice Dale Sandstrom, said the case record indicated only that the uncle, Al Tomayo, was Anderson's campaign manager.

Sandstrom said there were no other details about Tomayo's relationship with Anderson or Stockert's former wife, Wanda Stroud, or information about whether Anderson knew about Tomayo and Stroud's family connection before Stockert mentioned it.

"We conclude that under the circumstances of this case, as reflected in the information before us, the judge's impartiality could not reasonably be questioned," Sandstrom wrote. Chief Justice Gerald VandeWalle and Justices Carol Ronning Kapsner and William Neumann agreed.

Justice Mary Muehlen Maring, in a dissenting opinion, argued for reversing Stockert's conviction and granting him a new trial. The majority ruling in Stockert's case contradicts an earlier Supreme Court decision that emphasized the need to avoid the appearance of impropriety, she wrote.

Anderson was aware of the potential conflict early in the case, Maring said.

"I do not believe a judge must recuse automatically because of known campaign contributions infinitely into the future, but I do believe in this case, the close timing between the significant contributions to the judge's campaign and the proceeding makes this a case that required recusal," she wrote.

Anderson said Thursday he remembered little about the case. "Obviously, at the time, I didn't think there was any problem, or I would not have stayed on," Anderson said.

Alleging that the family connection between Stroud and his campaign manager was a reason to disqualify him "was a stretch," the judge said in a telephone interview. "I didn't think that was legitimate at all."

Stockert was charged after he failed to return his 5-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son to Stroud in Dickinson after he took the children for a weekend trip in September 2000. Stockert was arrested in Los Angeles eight days later.

Authorities said Stockert was upset that his request for custody of his children had been denied the month before. He made it after his former wife moved to Kensal, a rural community about 30 miles north of Jamestown. Stockert also alleged that he had received a death threat.