By Michael J. Trickey
It is my privilege to serve as the presiding judge for King County Superior Court for 2006-07. Judge Michael Spearman is the assistant presiding judge for 2006. Judge Glenna Hall has become the chief judge of Unified Family Court (UFC), which now has seven judges: four in Seattle and three in Kent.
Judge Jeffrey Ramsdell is the chief judge of the Regional Justice Center in Kent. Judge Patricia Clark continues as chief juvenile judge at the Youth Service Center and Juvenile Court. Judges Ronald Kessler and Dean Lum remain as chief criminal and civil judges at the King County Courthouse in Seattle.
The court’s Executive Committee consists of Judges Sharon Armstrong, Cheryl Carey, Jim Doerty, Helen Halpert, Paris Kallas, Palmer Robinson and the chief judges listed above. Judge Spearman and I also sit on the Executive Committee, along with Judge Richard Eadie as the immediate past presiding judge.
I want to thank Judge Eadie, who served as presiding judge from 2002-05, and Judge Joan DuBuque, chief UFC judge for 2003-05, for their service to the court and to the public. Judge Eadie led the court through the seismic retrofit, the post 9/11 recession and the county budget crisis. Judge DuBuque was the first overall chief UFC judge. She is largely responsible for making UFC the essential specialty court it is today.
I will end my initial column by noting that 2006 is the first budget year in a long while where the court did not have to cut its budget. One of the key reasons for this is the success of the Board for Judicial Administration’s (BJA) Trial Court Funding Task Force in addressing the “chronic under-funding of the justice system in Washington State.” Their work led to the passage of Senate Bill 5454 in the 2005 Legislature. That bill resulted in significantly more state financial support for the superior and district courts in King County.
Although many judges, lawyers and public officials participated in the process around the state, I want to recognize the work of Judge Deborah Fleck, BJA co-chair; Professor Roland Hjorth of the University of Washington School of Law; Wayne Blair, chair of the BJA Trial Court Funding Task Force; Ron Ward, then-president of the Washington State Bar Association; and John Cary, then-president of the King County Bar Association. Without their leadership, the effort would not have succeeded. n
