News & Updates
Washington Supreme Court rules juvenile life without parole violates the state constitution.
October 18, 2018 In a decision reached today, State of Washington v. Brian Bassett, the Washington Supreme Court ruled that sentencing juveniles to life without parole is unconstitutional. The sentencing statute, RCW 10.95.030(3)(...
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Washington Court Rules Published for Comment
The following proposed rule changes and new rules were ordered published for comment by the July 11, 2018 En Banc Administrative Conference per Order 25700-A-1236: Proposed changes to CrR 4.7 – Discovery and CrRLJ 4.7 ...
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Update: Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
By: Sara Sluszka, Immigration Resource Attorney Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) has been a temporary authorization to stay in the U.S., known as “deferred action,” for young undocumented immigrants who ca...
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WDA-Incarcerated Parents Project (IPP) Challenges Defenders to Keep Children and Parents Together
By D’Adre Cunningham, J.D. Recently there has been a lot of media[1] attention accompanied by moral outrage about the federal zero-tolerance policy,[2] which incorporated a practice of forced child-parent separations at our ...
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Seeking Public Defender Representatives for Pattern Jury Instructions Subcommittees
The Pattern Jury Instructions Committee (WPI) is seeking one or two defense attorney volunteers for subcommittees working on revisions to Ch. 35 and 36 (Assault, Reckless Endangerment, Harassment and DV) and Traffic Instructions ...
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Washington State Supreme Court Adopts General Rule 37
On April 5th, the Washington State Supreme Court adopted new General Rule (GR) 37 to eliminate the unfair exclusion of potential jurors based on race or ethnicity. Thanks to the hard work of community members, the jury selection w...
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Critical Criminal Justice Reforms for Washington’s Youth: E2SSB 6160 Changes Decline and Auto Decline Statutes
Timely and Critical Criminal Justice Reforms for Washington’s youth: E2SSB 6160 Changes Decline and Auto Decline Statutes (effective June 7, 2018) Last week Governor Inslee signed E2SSB 6160, a bill that dramatically changes the...
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National Public Defense Week: Honoring 2018 WDA Award Winners
It is an honor to recognize WDA’s 2018 award recipients as a part of this year’s National Public Defense Week activities. The honorees officially will be presented their awards on April 27, 2018 at the 2018 Defender Conferen...
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WDAIP Preliminary Analysis of Jennings v. Rodriguez
On February 27th, in Jennings v. Rodriguez, 583 U. S. ___(2018), the U.S. Supreme Court decided that many noncitizens facing deportation, including those convicted of certain crimes and detained by ICE when released from state/fe...
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Action Alert: SB 6052 – Death Penalty Abolition In Sight!
We are SO CLOSE to abolishing the death penalty in Washington. Senate Bill 6052 was voted out of the House Judiciary Committee and is currently in the Rules Committee. This is the farthest that any abolishment bill ever introduced...
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