Like taxes, getting older, and gravity, voir dire does not care how you feel about it. Potential jurors experience it as human beings with all the quirks and nuances of human psychology at play.

In a sprawling wooded grove, nestled between Discovery Park and Magnolia is the Fort Lawton Post Cemetery. Founded in 1909, the cemetery was an addition to Fort Lawton itself, an artillery center and defense base intended to defend Seattle and the Puget Sound coast from naval attack. Beyond its rows of orderly white headstones, a stately grave stands alone at the perimeter of the cemetery, a wide white pillar surrounded by metal fencing. It reads, Sold. Ital. Olivotto. The solitary grave is one of the only remnants of the largest court martial in United States history, the final resting place of Guglielmo Olivotto, an Italian prisoner of war lynched during a riot that occurred at the Fort Lawton Barracks in the summer of 1944. The murder of Olivotto resulted in the trial of 43 Black soldiers stationed at the fort, and the conviction of 28 of them, a story that took news cycles by storm as hearsay accounts of what happened that fateful night spread throughout Seattle and nationwide.1 A white man had been lynched, and Americans wanted answers. The violent altercation that occurred at Fort Lawton between Black Soldiers, white Military police, and Italian prisoners of war was the simultaneous product of racial segregation and nationalist fervor, exemplifying the larger societal belief that Black Americans were subordinate to even their war time enemies.

At Northwest Immigrant Rights Project’s Seattle Office, our front desk works to screen community members who are in dire need of immigration services. Our organization assists community members in Removal (Deportation) Proceedings, those seeking Asylum, those who wish to submit Family Petitions for their relatives, those who wish to apply for citizenship, and many who hope to apply for humanitarian forms of relief, such as U-visa, T-visa, VAWA, Special Juvenile Visa Status and DACA renewals. We also assist community members who wish to either renew or replace their permanent resident (green card) cards or employment authorization cards. All our offices across Washington state take pride in our commitment to assist as many people who are detained at the Northwest Detention Center as possible.

Listening to Barenaked Ladies “If I had a Million Dollars”, adding some extra zeros to the song, as I re-read for the third time, how 93-year-old Ruth Gottesman just donated $1 billion to a Bronx medical school, the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, with instructions that the gift be used to cover tuition for all students going forward. The donation is notable not only for its staggering size, but also because it is going to a medical institution in the Bronx, the city’s poorest borough. The Bronx has a high rate of premature deaths and ranks as the unhealthiest county in New York.

Summer is the time to take to the road. So, we investigated some new options for dining on our way. This time we focused on half-way points where we might stop on our way to Portland or Spokane.

It is a few days after Juneteenth as I write this column. It is an important day, a day to commemorate the ending of slavery in the United States. Of course, it symbolizes much more than one day. On its face, it was a day in 1865 in Texas when emancipation would be enforced 900 days after emancipation was first announced. The Confederate States surrendered on April 9, 1865, two months before emancipation in Texas. And still, there were enslaved people in states that did not secede and they were not freed until the ratification of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865.

The following are highlights from the KCBA Board of Trustees meetings held on May 15, convened by KCBA President Karen Orehoski.

Shifting our perspectives or stepping into the other party’s shoes offers benefits to both attorneys and clients. These benefits include improved problem-solving, a better outcome, or a more thorough understanding of the situation and each party’s interests. Just a reminder that shifts in perspectives not only allow for better professional outcomes but for better personal ones, too.

Office Space

Law school was a transformative experience. Having just graduated college, I had very little exposure to adult life experiences. And my childhood was not unlike many others who had come of age in the late 1970s. Graduating law school in the mid-80s, I had very little exposure how business works beyond serving customers at hospitality and retail establishments off and on. Law School taught me how to think differently. It taught me how to identify the issue, evaluate facts that were relevant to that issue, and then apply those facts to the law.