July 7, 2022

We are deeply saddened by the recent passing of Brenda C. Desmond, a former judge, law professor and local attorney, who died June 20 in Minnesota, where she had been treated for brain cancer. As her colleague and friend Maylinn Smith noted, Judge Desmond was a kind, compassionate, advocate who cared deeply for Tribal Nations and tribal sovereignty.

“She always expected the best [from people] and was willing to help them achieve,” Smith said. “She wouldn’t define them by the worst day of their life.  That’s just who Brenda was. Kind, thoughtful, an optimist who wanted everyone to reach their full potential.  She always came from a place of ‘what can I do to help you?’”

Desmond worked for the Montana Legislative Council from 1982 to 1986, where her duties included staffing the Committee on Indian Affairs. She was a member of the faculty of the Alexander Blewett III School of Law in Missoula from 1985 to 1994 and served as a supervising attorney in the Indian Law Clinic, where she worked closely with the late Professor Margery Hunter Brown.

This time working at the law school is where she formed a close mentorship role with Smith, now a tribal civil attorney with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation.

“I first met Brenda at the law school 1985,” Smith said.  “I was a student and she was still half-time faculty. We formed a close relationship and always kept in touch.”

When Desmond left as director of the Indian Law clinic in 1994, Maylinn stepped into the role.

“Brenda was always a fierce advocate of tribal sovereignty,” she said. “She believed this was the best possible conduit for good tribal governance. Brenda wasn’t looking to make tribes western. She wanted to respect their autonomy and had a refreshing approach towards working with tribal governments and Indian people.”

Desmond was an associate justice of the Confederated Salish & Kootenai Tribal Court of Appeals from 1997 to 2003 and also served as both an associate justice and Chief Justice for the Fort Peck Appellate Court from 2006 until 2020. In 2020, she joined the CSKT Tribal Public Defenders Office as a family defense attorney, where she served until she was diagnosed with cancer in 2021.

Smith and served in a sort of symbiotic relationship with the CSKT Tribal Courts. Smith served as the prosecutor, while Desmond was the public defender.

“We were dealing with tough cases of dependency and neglect and would problem solve daily,” Smith said. “We were always looking at how we could get the resources together to preserve families, which ultimately helps the most.”  She is greatly missed at CSKT. “She was very supportive of parents getting the services they needed to reunify,” Smith said “Brenda believed in a holistic representation approach, it was just who she was.”

In addition to her work for the Tribes, Desmond also served as a standing master in Montana’s Fourth Judicial District Court from 1994 to 2020. There, she established and presided over the first Veterans Treatment Court in Montana from its founding in 2011 until her retirement from state court service in 2020.  Public service was central to Brenda’s purpose. In addition to her various jobs, she spent more than a decade as a member of the Montana Board of Crime Control and was actively involved with the League of Women Voters.  

“I am incredibly blessed to of had her in my life, and I am sad she won’t be here anymore,” Smith said. “Some people you meet for a moment; the special ones come into your life forever.”