» Posts - Washington Defender Association

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...

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...

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...

King County Council Passes Immigration Ordinance that Prohibits Use of Local Resources to Participate in ICE Enforcement

Today, in a 6-3 vote, members of the King County Council passed an immigration ordinance that prohibits use of county resources, including law enforcement and the Department of Adult and Juvenile Detention (the jail), to take any ...

Urgent Legislative Action Alert

Bills must be voted out of their house of origin by tomorrow, February 14, 2018. Please use the link below to contact legislators urging them to pass SB 5689, the Keep Washington Working Act. This bill will provide protection ...

Didn’t attend our “Readying Yourself for the Draeger” CLE? Here’s what you missed!

On February 2, 2018, defenders in King County (as well as defenders from a variety of other jurisdictions who made the trek into Seattle) gathered to learn about the State’s new breath test machine—the Draeger 9510. We had a g...

Washington Defender Association’s Conditional of Support HB 2687

WDA and WACDL strongly support increased state funding for indigent defense services. The provision of these critical, constitutionally mandated trial level services has been delegated to local governments and we commend these eff...

Important Budget Action Request

Hearings were held the first two days of the session on the supplemental budget for 2017-18. Greg Link, director of the Washington Appellate Project and WDA/WACDL’s lobbyist, Bob Cooper, testified in favor of the Washington St...

New Practice Advisories on Representing Non-Citizens in Dependency Cases

D’Adre Cunningham of WDA’s Incarcerated Parents Project has posted four practice advisories for attorneys representing non-citizen parents and non-citizen children in dependency cases. Dependency Immigration Basics (P...

WDA’s Incarcerated Parents Project: Say Yes To Keeping families together by supporting Senate Bill 5307

“Our love goes beyond bars.” -T.Q. and M.L, Mothers at Washington Corrections Center for Women Caption: A mother parenting and serving time for a violent crime with her son at the Washington Corrections Center for Wome...

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