Washington State Supreme Court

The Washington Supreme Court unanimously struck down Tim Eyman's Initiative 976 in a ruling issued Thursday. The measure would have steeply discounted the price of car registrations, while gutting transportation budgets statewide.

An innovative program that allows non-lawyers to be licensed to give limited legal advice has been touted as a national model. As reported by KNKX in 2016, it was created as a way to provide inexpensive legal help for people without a lot of money.

But now, with no official warning, the Washington Supreme Court has voted to kill the LLLT program, as it’s known.

The state Supreme Court issued a letter earlier this month calling on the legal profession, themselves included, to do the hard work of addressing systemic racism. 

The state Supreme Court has sided with a woman who was permanently barred from working in child care because of a criminal conviction.

Christal Fields thought she had finally shaken the decades-old conviction that had complicated much of her life. When she was banned from working in childcare two years ago, it was plain that wasn't the case.

Scammers have found a way to use fake caller ID information to pose as the Washington State Supreme Court Clerk and call people up to threaten arrest and demand money.

Tuesday is a big day in Olympia for people concerned about school funding issues in Washington. That’s when the state Supreme Court will hold a hearing on whether the legislature has met the court’s requirements to amply fund basic education in the long-running McCleary case.

A legal fight between the City of Seattle and the University of Washington has ended in a victory for the city. The state Supreme Court said university buildings can be designated as city landmarks.

For the first time in decades, all of the Washington Supreme Court Justices up for re-election are facing serious opposition. Much of it has to do with the court’s controversial rulings on charter schools and public school funding.

Fifty-six former and retired judges in Washington state are urging the Washington Supreme Court to declare the death penalty unconstitutional. They signed on to a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in a case  being heard tomorrow in Olympia.

Nearly five years have passed since Maurice Clemmons gunned down four Lakewood police officers in a coffee shop. Clemmons’ aunt and cousin were convicted of helping him after the murders.

Now, their case is before the Washington Supreme Court on appeal. Oral arguments are scheduled for Thursday.

Washington lawmakers may be tired of the state Supreme Court telling them how to do their job. At least one bill targeting the court is in front of lawmakers this session. 

The Legislature is under mandate by the State Supreme Court to increase state funding for education. Last year, the court told lawmakers to spend more, and lawmakers responded by upping education funding by $1 billion. Then a month ago, the court gave them even more specifics where the spending should go.

The Washington Supreme Court on Thursday ordered lawmakers to submit a complete plan by the end of April to detail how the state will fully pay for basic education.

The 8-1 ruling said that while the state made progress in last year's budget to increase funding for K-12 education, it was "not on target" to hit the constitutionally required funding level by the 2017-18 school year.

In 12 years on the Washington Supreme Court, Justice Tom Chambers authored two groundbreaking opinions: one on foster care, the other on indigent defense. The former justice died late Wednesday at the age of 70.

In 2003, Chambers wrote the unanimous majority opinion in a case that put a spotlight on how often foster children in Washington bounce from home to home.