On March 1, the Seattle City Attorney’s Office announced that it would be filing an affidavit of prejudice against Judge Pooja Vaddadi “in all criminal cases going forward.” Under Washington Criminal Rules for Courts of Limited Jurisdiction, an affidavit of prejudice means that Judge Vaddadi is immediately disqualified from every case in which the City Attorney files one. And according to the City Attorney, that’s going to be every case.
Apparently, there’s an internal memorandum fully outlining the City Attorney’s policy. I have not read the memo! (I suspect it is not publicly available, at least not yet.) But the City Attorney has described its reasoning in a press release. The Stranger and Publicola have both been covering the City Attorney’s decision. (The Stranger piece has some very interesting quotes from current and former judges responding to the policy.)
When I first heard the news, my immediate thought was: “Wait, can they do that?!” I am familiar with the affidavit procedure from my time as a Washington practitioner. It’s essentially a kind of “peremptory challenge” that either party can use on a judge, so long as you file it promptly. CrRLJ 8.9 provides the affidavit procedure for criminal cases in Municipal Court, while RCW 4.12.050 provides essentially the same procedure in Superior Court. (Note: The language in the RCW is a bit softer, dropping the “affidavit of prejudice” language in favor of the less inflammatory “notice of disqualification.”)
Though I was familiar with the affidavit procedure, I’d never heard of a prosecutor’s office adopting—publicly—a blanket policy of disqualifying a judge in all matters. That pinged my “I don’t know if you’re allowed to do that” radar.
So can a prosecutor’s office adopt a blanket disqualification policy? The short answer: Maybe.
The longer answer: I have no idea but I’ll tell you what I found after doing a bit of research.
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