Tag Archives: Chris Gregoire

Court races shape up

Candidate filing week has passed. And that means we now know for sure who aspires to wear a robe on the benches of Washington’s courts.

Locally, there are candidates from the Kitsap peninsula running for judge on not only the county’s superior court bench, but also for the court of appeals and the Washington State Supreme Court. Here’s a brief guide to all of our judicial candidates:

Port Orchard lawyer Bruce Danielson, who ran a close race for county prosecutor last year and has also run for judge in Kitsap, made a surprise entrance into a race for state supreme court justice against Steven Gonzalez of Seattle, on the last day of election filing.

Gonzalez was appointed to the eighth seat aboard the nine-seat state supreme court by Gov. Chris Gregoire in November.

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2012/jan/09/gonzalez-joins-washington-state-supreme-court/

Sheryl Gordon McCloud, who lives on Bainbridge Island and is a longtime appellate lawyer, announced far prior to filing week her intent to seek seat number nine on the state supreme court, which is being vacated by retiring justice Tom Chambers.
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2012/mar/14/bainbridge-island-woman-to-run-for-state-supreme/

She has three opponents: Bruce Hilyer, a King County Superior Court judge, John W. Ladenburg Sr., former Pierce County executive and Richard Sanders, former state supreme court judge.

The most crowded race involving Kitsap County candidates comes in the local division of the court of appeals — the court sandwiched between the lower superior court and the higher state supreme court.

Longtime Court of Appeals Judge David Armstrong is retiring this year, creating the vacancy. Six candidates, two of which are from Kitsap, are vying to take his place.
http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2012/jan/07/longtime-kitsap-lawyer-retires-as-appeals-court/

Pamela “Pam” Loginsky, of Port Orchard, is a former Kitsap County deputy prosecutor who works for the state’s prosecutor’s association.

Thomas “Tom” Weaver, of Bremerton, is a private attorney who runs a law firm handling mostly criminal defense.

The four other candidates appear to call Thurston County home, according to the Olympian newspaper. They include, Thomas Bjorgen, who recently worked as a land use hearings examiner; Michael Lynch, head of the state attorney general’s office’s tort claims division; Jim Foley, an Olympia lawyer who has run for state supreme court before; and retired Democratic state representative Brendan Williams, also of Olympia.

Of the eight judges on Kitsap County Superior Court, seven won’t face an opponent this fall, including Kevin Hull (former Kitsap deputy prosecutor) and Steve Dixon (longtime Port Orchard attorney), both of whom were recently appointed to the seats by Gov. Chris Gregoire.

The one race that is contested — the seat that Judge M. Karlynn Haberly is retiring from — has bloated to four candidates:

Jennifer Forbes, who commutes to Tacoma, where she is a partner at the law firm McGavick Graves;

Bill Houser, defense attorney currently working in the Kitsap County Office of Public Defense.

Karen Klein, a Bainbridge attorney and chief executive officer and general counsel of Silver Planet, Inc., a senior health care concierge service.

Rob MacDermid, a Navy veteran and general practice lawyer.

The Kitsap Sun will be keeping close tabs on these races in the months ahead. Stay tuned.

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County’s lawyers favor attorneys Dixon, Hull and Wall for Kitsap County Superior Court seats

The results are in; The county’s lawyers have spoken.

(At least, those who wanted to make their feelings known about who should be the next two attorneys to grace the Kitsap County Superior Court bench.)

One hundred and twelve lawyers — 50 percent of the county bar’s dues paying members — cast ballots in the Kitsap County Bar Association’s perennial preference poll, which included 11 lawyers who are vying for Gov. Chris Gregoire’s nod to join our local superior court bench. Ballots are cast anonymously.

The front runners from the poll were:

Steve Dixon, a Port Orchard-based general practice lawyer, who’d applied previously for appointment to the seat that ultimately went to Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Sally Olsen in 2004;

Kevin Hull, senior deputy prosecutor in charge of the Kitsap County Prosecutor’s Office’s Special Assault Unit; and

Greg Wall, Port Orchard-based general practice lawyer. Wall had previously run unsuccessfully for Kitsap County Superior Court judge in 2008. He was elected in November to the South Kitsap School Board.

Full results of the poll can be found at the bar association’s web site. As you’ll see, attorneys ranked their first,second and third choices for the seats and also answered if they felt each attorney was “highly qualified,” just “qualified,” or “not qualified.”

Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Russell Hartman is stepping down at the end of the this month and Judge Theodore Spearman died in January, creating the openings.

Gregoire will make the appointments but all eight superior court seats are up for election in November (though incumbents in judicial elections generally have an advantage).

So, if the governor picks ’em, why does this poll even matter?

For one, they send the results to the governor’s office for review, according to prominent bar association attorney Paul Fjelstad. (The Kitsap Chapter of Washington Women Lawyers does as well, he points out.)

The bar poll has a mixed record as a predictor of future judges but it has gotten it right quite a few times, including:

* Stephen Holman’s appointment (by the county commissioners) to the Kitsap County District Court bench in 2006.

*James Docter’s election wins for Bremerton Municipal Court in 1997 and 2009.

It also has its shortcomings: In 2008, a three-way race for retiring Kitsap County Superior Court Judge Leonard Costello’s seat saw Wall get the most votes among attorneys — yet he lost in the primary, and Kingston attorney Jeanette Dalton was eventually elected.

The governor is expected to make her replacement picks in the coming weeks.

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Belfair marijuana provider seeks Shelton expansion

Mari Meds, the nearly one-year-old provider of marijuana for the surrounding medical cannabis community, has been seeking a second location in Shelton.

Not so fast, the city said, in rejecting its business license application. City officials said the business would run afoul of state and federal laws.

The denial came as a blow to Lori Kent, one of Mari Meds’ proprietors. Mari Meds has appealed the decision to the Shelton city commission; their appeal will be heard Nov. 21.

“I don’t think we’ve thrown in the towel,” she said.

Kent said her Highway 3 location has been careful to comply with state laws, even after Gov. Chris Gregoire signed a law that left so-called dispensaries “without legal recognition and more vulnerable to prosecution,” according to an AP article.

Kent said the shop is surviving by using “patient self-treatment.” It gives patients access to other patients who know how to find their state-authorized medicine.

“It puts it back on the patient,” she said. They just verify they’re a legal patient, and the people behind the counter have medical cards, so they’re sharing their marijuana.

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