News & Updates
Department of Children, Youth, and Families FFPSA Community Meetings
The Department of Children, Youth, and Families will host four meetings throughout the state over the next two months, that will focus on how the agency is addressing candidacy and prevention with regards to FFPSA and the agencyâ€...
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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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Snohomish County Public Defender Association Seeks Attorney II
The Snohomish County Public Defender Association is a non-profit organization committed to providing the highest quality of legal representation to our clients – indigent persons accused of crimes. We are looking for an att...
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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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WSBA Council on Public Defense Seeks Your Input
The WSBA Council on Public Defense (CPD) is seeking input from defenders in two areas of practice: ITA and persistent offender cases. Today, the CPD Mental Health Committee is submitting proposed Performance Guidelines to the full...
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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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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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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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