Sara Rosalie Wahl (née Erwin; August 27, 1924 – July 22, 2013) was an American feminist, lawyer, public defender, clinical law professor, and judge.

She wrote 549 opinions including for the majority in holding that different penalties for crack and powder cocaine were unconstitutional in State v. Russell (477 N.W.2d 886 [Minn.1993]).

[1] A local lawyer required a $100 retainer in order to help them seek restitution, which, as Wahl recounted, "might have well have been a million" during the difficult times of the Depression.

She dropped out and taught in the one-room school in Birch Creek that she herself had attended after her fiancé who had enlisted in the Air Force died in a military training accident in 1943.

She later met, married, and moved to Minnesota with her husband, Roswell Wahl, and lived with friends on forty acres north of Circle Pines at what they hoped would be an intentional community.

C. Paul Jones hired Wahl for the newly created public defender's office as an Assistant State Public Defender when she graduated in 1967 and allowed her to work part-time; he was one of the only legal employers to do so, and many of Minnesota's first women lawyers therefore learned from experience of the legal troubles of the poor.

This work gave her experience defending the indigent but also provided numerous opportunities for appellate oral argument; she argued 109 cases before the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Judith L. Oakes chaired Minnesota Women Lawyers' endorsement committee and it winnowed a list of eighteen names to seven (Doris Huspeni, Phyllis Gene Jones, Roberta Levy, Delores Orey, Susanne C. Sedgwick, Esther Tomljanovich, and Rosalie Wahl).

[14] University of Minnesota law professor Roberta Levy and Hennepin Municipal Judge Diana Murphy were ultimately the other two finalists.

[15] When President Carter nominated Senator Walter Mondale's former law partner and associate justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, Harry MacLaughlin, to the federal bench, Minneapolis Star reporter Gwenyth Jones wrote a front-page column reminding the governor and all readers of his promise.

Cloud Minnesota to hammer out a platform and choose delegates to the upcoming White House Conference on Women in Houston, conference chair Minnesota Secretary of State Joan Growe announced that Governor Rudy Perpich would appoint Rosalie Wahl to the state supreme court—the first woman and its 72nd justice.

As Judge Harriet Lansing recalls, "Rosalie's carefully chosen words left so indelible an impression that they were published in their entirety in the next morning's Minneapolis Star.

"[2] A reception in St. Paul on June 9 to celebrate the appointment, party activist Koryne Horbal clasped Wahl's hand and tearfully said, "Thank you for being ready."

For the first time in two decades, a seated Supreme Court Justice had a serious opponent, or rather in Wahl’s case, three, meaning she would face a primary.

[23] Justice Sheran observed: "Life taught Wahl to take a punch, and that ability helped her be productive in situations where a less resilient and tolerant person would have fled in frustration.

She appeared to be as comfortable with senior partners in the Manhattan boardroom at Sullivan & Cromwell as she was in southeastern Minnesota with a group of farm women.

Her grace in working with those who did not necessarily share her ideals is one of her strongest qualities, and it allowed her to accomplish projects in the face of repeated setbacks.

"[24] Judge Peterson, who also faced a challenge, joined forces with Wahl and they campaigned together, allowing them to draw on an existing fund called the Lawyers Committee to Retain Incumbent Justices, already in place from past elections.

Wahl assembled a coalition of William Mitchell College of Law alumni, faculty, and students, as well as elites and grassroots organizers for social change, from feminists, to public interest lawyers, to Quakers, to the League of Women Voters.

[27] While serving as a justice on the Supreme Court, Wahl traversed the state, speaking to bar associations, women’s groups, and other community organizations, such as churches and hospitals.

Most of the women on Perpich’s first short list ultimately served on the state or federal bench, if not the Minnesota Supreme Court.

Research on the effects of increasing numbers of women on the Minnesota Supreme Court showed little effect in voter participation in judicial races, an increased willingness on the part of lawyers to appeal women’s rights cases (which peaked at three justices), and some reports of an altered courtroom atmosphere.

She had what her former clerk, Jane Larson, called “her longest running struggle with other members of the supreme court” over how to interpret statutes allowing for the availability of permanent rather than rehabilitative maintenance for long-term homemaker spouses.

"In one case probably little remembered on the statewide scene, Huver v. Opatz, the issue was whether one rural township or another was to be held responsible for maintaining the roadside beside a particular stretch of county line road.

One of her former clerks, Amy Adams, wrote, "I have never met anyone as fiercely committed to the preservation of individual dignity as Justice Wahl.

Wahl recalls the exhilarating sense of making history and that women have learned the hard way that those holding power never share it until it becomes politically necessary to do so.

She chuckled over the local comic strip, Sally Forth, which shows the girl, Hilary, at Halloween admiring her costume of a black robe in the mirror.

"[38] In an interview with Peter Shea done in 2003 she talks about her post-retirement role as a "public citizen," including her work as a peace activist.

Nina Tottenburg narrates Emily Hoddad's documentary film about Wahl entitled, "The Girl from Birch Creek.

"[1] Stanford University Law Library's ABA Trailblazers project holds an interview of Wahl by Cara Lee Neville.