Op-Ed: Vote Gabe Rothstein for Seattle Municipal Court

The most important votes you’ll cast this year will be for judges. And while Washington’s Supreme Court races have received the lion’s share of attention – deservedly so – Seattle voters have an opportunity to reform one of Washington’s most powerful, and most dysfunctional, courts: Seattle Municipal Court. 

Voters should seize this opportunity and elect Gabe Rothstein, a career public defender with significant judicial experience. 

Seattle Municipal Court is powerful, expensive, and scandal-ridden

Despite its relatively low profile, Seattle Municipal Court (SMC) is one of the most influential – and troubled – courts in Washington. SMC is a court of limited jurisdiction: it only handles tickets, misdemeanors, and gross misdemeanors (like assaults without serious injuries and shoplifting goods worth less than $750). 

Misdemeanor-only courts have long been controversial; there is ample evidence that these courts increase disorder and waste municipal resources by disrupting medical treatment, increasing homelessness, and selectively targeting impoverished people of color – all in the name of punishing relatively harmless behavior. Some states, most notably California, have abolished misdemeanor-only courts entirely. 

Seattle has not followed suit. SMC remains one of the most powerful courts in Washington. Its seven elected judges – plus five unelected magistrates – handle more cases than any other court of limited jurisdiction in the state. SMC’s judges and magistrates oversee approximately 10,000 criminal cases annually. About 90% of those cases target defendants too poor to afford a lawyer. The Court’s powerful probation department actively supervises approximately 2,000 Seattleites on any given day. 

Unsurprisingly, SMC is very, very expensive. The court itself costs approximately $48 million a year, with an approximately $12 million apiece for misdemeanor-only prosecutors and defense attorneys, and $24 million to incarcerate people charged with minor offenses. That’s about $96 million a year out of Seattle’s overburdened general fund – an astonishing sum for a city that just hyperventilated over $9 million for school lunches. 

It’s not clear what Seattle gets for all that spending. Public safety has improved dramatically since the pandemic even though Seattle’s misdemeanor prosecution rates have remained roughly steady for at least 10 years, suggesting that SMC’s misdemeanor prosecutions have – at best – no discernible positive impact. 

There’s also a negative side to SMC. 

For starters, SMC has been plagued by scandal. In 2017, the Court’s presiding judge – the court’s chief administrator who is elected by the other judges – was disciplined for colluding with prosecutors to force a domestic violence survivor to testify. In 2019, Seattle’s chief prosecutor and public defender jointly accused a new SMC presiding judge of unethical behavior after he privately urged prosecutors to seek longer sentences and publicly admitted he sided with prosecutors’ sentencing recommendations “99% of the time.” In 2022, a third presiding judge, Adam Eisenberg, lost re-election after being credibly accused of misogyny and pro-police bias. The remaining judges then demonstrated their contempt for SMC’s own rules – and voters – by excluding Eisenberg’s successor from the vote to select a new presiding judge. 

SMC has also been criticized for competence and fairness. Higher courts have reversed SMC judges for failing to speedily arraign defendants, imposing unlawful fines, misunderstanding basic legal principles, and allowing prosecutors to exclude people of color from juries. And a 2020 analysis by the Vera Project found that SMC probation – which lasted, on average, for an astonishing 3.8 years for Seattleites convicted of minor crimes – was ineffective, onerous, and racially discriminatory. 

Electing Gabe Rothstein will help fix this broken court

This year, Seattle has a clear choice: we can vote for Gabe Rothstein, an experienced reformer, or Garmon Newsom, the former Burien City Attorney best known for trying to prevent a church from helping people experiencing homelessness. 

Rothstein, a Snohomish County public defender, knows how to fix SMC. He has over 20 years of criminal legal experience representing impoverished defendants facing everything from misdemeanors to involuntary commitment. He also has broader experience: he chairs the State Bar Association’s Character and Fitness Board – vetting Washington’s future lawyers – and has served as a judge pro tempore, or substitute judge, in courts throughout King and Snohomish Counties. He also provides volunteer legal assistance for juveniles who can’t afford attorneys, and serves on the board of an Arlington-based addiction treatment center. He has the deep, practical experience necessary to help fix Seattle’s troubled court. 

His opponent does not. As Burien City Attorney, Mr. Newsom – a former prosecutor – worked hard to prevent a church from assisting their unhoused neighbors. At times, he defended Burien’s sweeping efforts to criminalize homelessness by making arguably inaccurate statements about state and local law. 

While some of Newsom’s supporters have argued that he was simply trying to provide legal advice to his client, the City of Burien, this argument fails for two reasons: first, lawyers can always choose to represent different clients, and, second, Newsom’s emphatic public defense of Burien’s efforts to criminalize homelessness – including his argument that criminalization would incentivize people to somehow find housing – was political advocacy, not legal advice. Burien ultimately rejected Mr. Newsom’s ineffective strategy, electing progressives to replace his longtime city council allies. Seattle voters should reject him too. 

Seattle Municipal Court is expensive, ineffective, and dysfunctional. Gabe Rothstein has the legal and practical experience necessary to push one of Washington’s most powerful courts in the right direction. Vote Rothstein.

Austin Field serves on The Urbanist Elections Committee, which opted against endorsing in municipal court races, but did weigh in on Washington State Supreme Court races.