{"id":23378,"date":"2025-10-25T21:11:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-25T21:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/23378\/"},"modified":"2025-10-25T21:11:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-25T21:11:08","slug":"congress-should-adopt-a-california-rule-to-remove-biased-washington-superior-court-judges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/23378\/","title":{"rendered":"Congress Should Adopt a California Rule to Remove Biased Washington Superior Court Judges"},"content":{"rendered":"

Anyone paying attention to Washington\u2019s criminal justice<\/a> system knows that some judges on the Washington Superior Court are now so anesthetized to persistent and chronic crime that they hand out notoriously lenient sentences to recidivist and violent defendants.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t believe us?<\/p>\n

According to the District of Columbia Sentencing Commission\u2019s 2024 annual report, 88% of sentences<\/a> that were outside the guidelines range were downward departures, meaning they were shorter than the recommendation. The 2023 annual report found that, by the end of 2023, only 38% of the more than 5,322 felony arrests in Washington had led to findings of guilt.<\/p>\n

The data is even more compelling\u2014or frightening, depending on your point of view\u2014with respect to sentencing gun-wielding criminals <\/a>to prison.<\/p>\n

From 2018 to 2022, only 1.7% of people arrested for carrying a pistol<\/a> without a license in Washington were sentenced to prison. While the percentage of prison sentences per arrest increased for 2023-2024, it remained a meager 3%, District of Columbia Sentencing Commission data shows.<\/p>\n

In other words, you could carry an illegal gun<\/a> in the nation\u2019s capital with a 97% chance of avoiding a prison sentence\u2014a relatively safe gamble for a career criminal.<\/p>\n

At the same time, crime exploded. Homicides in Washington, which averaged 134 per year during the 2010s, increased to an average of 222.5 from 2021 to 2024.<\/p>\n

Despite the combination of high crime and low sentences, prosecutors in the nation\u2019s capital currently have no tool to effectively challenge or remove overly lenient judges from presiding over criminal cases. In other words, prosecutors have no mechanism to address judges whose pattern of decisions in criminal cases consistently undermines public safety.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where California comes into the picture.<\/p>\n

Yes, you read that right:\u00a0Heritage Foundation\u00a0scholars are recommending a California rule. Read on.<\/p>\n

Unlike most states, California allows prosecutors and defense attorneys to remove the trial judge assigned to a case without litigating whether the judge has a specific bias towards a particular party or case. The state\u2019s Code of Civil Procedure \u00a7170.6 makes judge disqualification automatic: Once a party files a motion and submits an affidavit alleging bias, the presiding judge (the head judge) must immediately reassign the case to a different judge.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how it works: Line prosecutors or public defenders who want to \u201cchallenge\u201d a judge ask permission from their supervisor to \u201cpaper\u201d a judge whom they know, based on experience, has ruled against their office in what they believe is a biased manner. If the supervisor says yes, the judge is \u201cpapered\u201d and no longer presides over that case.<\/p>\n

If a particular judge is routinely \u201cpapered\u201d in criminal cases, the presiding judge will eventually reassign that judge to hear cases exclusively from the civil docket.<\/p>\n

Most other state-level systems require the party seeking a new judge to provide proof of bias or prejudice, but in California, such proof is not required.<\/p>\n

This provides an effective tool that keeps judges honest and fair to both sides in criminal cases. At the same time, it averts potentially time-consuming (and potentially embarrassing) hearings about whether a judge is unfairly prejudiced\u2014while still preserving public confidence in judicial impartiality.<\/p>\n

By contrast, attorneys in Washington (and in most other places) must file a formal motion stating \u201cthe facts and the reasons for the belief that bias or prejudice exists\u201d by the judge against one of the parties. Thus, the prosecutor must allege specific prejudice, not just general dissatisfaction with the judge\u2019s rulings in many similar cases over time.<\/p>\n

This creates a high bar that effectively prevents prosecutors from seeking reassignment, even when a judge\u2019s track record suggests tendentious leniency or bias against the government. The same holds for defense attorneys seeking to challenge judges they believe are biased against their clients.<\/p>\n

Given the current sad state of affairs, it\u2019s time for Washington to implement this blue state policy to balance the scales of justice in the Superior Court.<\/p>\n

Washington should amend its rule and adopt a provision like California\u2019s into its code of criminal procedure, allowing prosecutors and defense attorneys to challenge judges whom they believe are prejudiced against them.<\/p>\n

As of September, there were 15 vacancies on the Superior Court, and the court is expecting additional retirements next year. Once those are filled, the court will be more evenly split between lenient judges and Donald Trump-appointed, law-and-order judges.<\/p>\n

In that light, now is precisely the moment to adopt a peremptory challenge system that protects both sides from general bias\u2014whether that be from soft-on-crime judges who reflexively favor defendants, or from overly hardline judges who might systematically favor the state.<\/p>\n

By following in California\u2019s footsteps, Washington can ensure that both prosecutors and defense attorneys can secure impartial adjudication and preserve public confidence in the judicial system.<\/p>\n

Originally published by The Washington Times.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Anyone paying attention to Washington\u2019s criminal justice system knows that some judges on the Washington Superior Court are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,8,723,18321,10978],"class_list":{"0":"post-23378","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-california","8":"tag-california","9":"tag-california-headlines","10":"tag-california-news","11":"tag-crime","12":"tag-judicial-nominees","13":"tag-washington-dc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}