Full Interview: Supreme Court Justice Mary Yu on Her Life as a Trailblazer, the Election and Engaging with Local Politics
Justice Mary Yu hasn’t always taken the conventional path. In 2014, she became the Washington State Supreme Court’s first Asian-American, Latina and openly LGBTQ member. Before that, Yu spent 14 years on the King County Superior Court and officiated the first same-sex marriages in the state in 2012. Yu grew up in Chicago with a Chinese father and a Mexican mother. She was the first in her family to go to college. The Trail spoke with Justice Yu via Zoom about her career, the state of the nation, and political engagement in a divided time.
We wanted to hear sort of more in your words about your journey to the Washington State Supreme Court: why were you originally inspired to study law and pursue this career path?
“One of the things that I share with everyone is: it wasn’t by design. Everything that I’ve done has been an almost accidental opportunity. I know that there’s a lot of advice given to people who say, ‘Plan out your life, structure it, have a sense of where you’re going.’ I never had a sense of where I was going.
Life happened, and when an opportunity came up, I just went with it. So when I graduated from college, I did some community organizing/social justice work in Chicago. I did that for 10 years. And it was only at the end of that period that I thought to myself: ‘I really need some additional tools to bring about social change.’ You can only talk about it and can only do so much work. It became clear that lawyers have the power to write laws; to make things legal and illegal. When you’re trying to combat a lot of social justice questions, like racism or lack of adequate housing, it really is often through the law that those changes come about.
So I went off to law school, and while in law school, just happened to also really fall in love with trial practice, and I ended up getting a job in the prosecutor’s office in Seattle King County. It was only because of connections.
Once you’re in the courtroom, the whole world changes. If you have any inclination, if you’ve ever been to a court–certain people just are drawn to it. And it was in that prosecutor’s office that then a judge came to me and just said, ‘Look, I’m retiring, and would you ever think about being a judge?’ And I said, ‘No, I never thought about being a judge.’ And then she said, ‘you know, you really ought to apply. You really ought to do this.’ And eventually, I applied. Governor Locke was the governor at the time, and I knew Governor Locke from the community and having worked at King County, and it just all happened. He just was very practical. He just said, ‘Look, Mary, if you ever even think about being a judge, I’m the governor. I’ve got the power to do this, but you need to let me know whether you really want to do this or not.’ I thought about it, and I thought, ‘If you decided to appoint me, I would be honored, and I would accept.’ And it just escalated.
The same thing happened 14 years later at the Supreme Court. I never thought about going to the Supreme Court. I did not want to run a statewide election, and it was only because there was a vacancy and an opportunity. Justice González, who was at the Supreme Court, called me and just said, ‘We need some trial judges up here. We need to have diversity and you are experienced, and you need to apply.’ And I just thought, oh, geez. Olympia is 63 miles from Seattle. I didn’t want to do it. And I thought, ok I’ll apply, because I really think the application pool ought to be diverse, and that Governor Inslee ought to have a choice.
I applied, and the same kind of conversation [happened]: I’m sitting in the governor’s office talking to Governor Inslee. He just said, ‘Do you really want to do this?’ And I thought, ‘I’m not sure.’ And he just said, ‘Well, I need to know that you would accept if I would offer you the appointment.’ And again, all of a sudden, it just happened.
So here I am, 10 years later. Didn’t plan it. Like what I’m doing. But it was not intentional.”
You studied theology as an undergrad, and I’m curious how that impacted your career path, your mindset or anything else specifically.
“Yeah, you can study theology in terms of understanding the doctrine and the history. For me, it was in a social context. And so I’d have to say that it was in that study that I really embraced some very fundamental principles about equality, the dignity of the human person, and how it is that we enhance one another’s dignity — globally, locally. It’s why I wanted to do community organizing work. It’s a way to empower people. And so I would say the underlying values come from my faith, come from an understanding of our relationship to one another as humans. I continue to feel a sense of duty and obligation to try to make life better for other people.”
Have you ever found yourself in a position where your personal opinions or preferences come into conflict with the work you do as a judge? Or to rephrase: how do you reconcile those two things if they come into conflict?
“Yeah, they’re always in conflict, right? We work in a very imperfect system. When I was a trial judge, it was very difficult to compose very harsh sentences on people. Because I really wanted to believe that everybody’s worthy of redemption; that severe punishment doesn’t always bring about the right result. But as a judge, you take an oath to follow the law, and if I didn’t have any discretion, you just gotta do it. And so I remember it being awfully difficult when I had to impose life sentences. It was a very serious moment. It was a serious moment for the person, but also for me as a judge. And yet, some people could not do the job. There are people who walked away, who just said ‘I can’t impose the death penalty. I can’t do it.’ Others said, ‘I can’t terminate parental rights,’ because they thought that that’s so fundamental. So you have to wrestle with it personally. And when you take that oath, you got to be able to say, ‘I’m going to walk into the lion’s den and do it, even though it’s hard.’”
Is there any specific case that you remember that you feel was the hardest decision to make as a judge, or as a Supreme Court justice?
“I’m going to tell you a story that it was the hardest. But this is how life is really funny and has surprises. There was this case that I did: the law has changed now, but previously the three strikes law was pretty serious in the sense of three strikes, and it’s a permanent life sentence. The underlying convictions that were the predicate offenses were often offenses that were not really that serious. They didn’t require that you killed somebody, or that it was a serious assault.
This black woman was before me for trial. It was her third strike offense: she had robbed a Subway and she said she had a gun. She went into the subway shop by the Seattle Convention Center and said, ‘Give me all your money.’ They gave her all the money. Then she leaves. It was charged as a felony, and it was her third conviction. She never physically harmed anybody. Did she scare people? Well, of course, she scared the person working the register. But I had to sentence her to a life sentence for that crime because it was a qualifying offense. It was one of the hardest things that I’ve ever done.
It’s so funny because after I sentenced her, I thought about her for quite some time. Then I got invited to do a TED talk, and it was going to be at the prison. I didn’t even think of her, and never even thought she might be in the audience. So I get up and I give this TED talk about preparing to be released. How people needed to be hopeful and that they needed to use the time there to prepare themselves so that when they leave, they’re ready to rejoin society.
So I sit down, very happy with my speech. She sits next to me, and then she says, ‘Do you remember me?’ I looked at her, and immediately I remembered her. I said, ‘Of course I do.’ And I said, ‘I’m really sorry. It was a sentence I had to impose.’ And she said, ‘Don’t apologize’. She said, ‘I know you had to do it.’ She said, ‘I was homeless. I was on drugs, but I found a purpose here in the prison,’ She said, ‘I’m counseling younger women to do exactly what you said, to use this time to rehabilitate yourself so that you’re ready to leave.’
She and I continued to have conversations. I went to visit her back in prison, and then after about a year and a half after that, I got invited to do a speech at the Seattle Clemency Project. Seattle Clemency Project is an organization in Seattle that works on filing petitions for people to seek a pardon or clemency, not innocence, but just clemency from the governor. They were having a dinner and asked me to give the dinner speech. So I talk about this person. At the same time, the legislature is changing the laws, recognizing that predicate offenses are unfair and that there were so many people serving time. Because at the time was a split Democrat-Republican Senate, there needed to be some compromises. And so the compromise was just finding a date and saying this was not going to be retroactive from this period on. She was one of the people left behind, so the law would not apply to her. So when I’m giving this speech, I use that as an example of why lawyers really need to be involved in legal reform and justice reform.
After the dinner, somebody came up to me from Microsoft and said, ‘We do clemency petitions, and we’d like to take on this case.’ And I said, ‘I can’t broker this. You just go ahead and do this through the Clemency Project.’ They did, because the Seattle Times did a whole exposé of all the people who were left behind. The fact is, statistically, the majority of people who were left behind were black. Legislature comes back into session and changes that and decides to go backwards and pick up the rest of these people, and she’s included. So what that really meant is she got to be re-sentenced. She comes before the judge who was my successor, Judge Chung, and is re-sentenced. He read everything. I submitted a letter on her behalf to say I had to impose this sentence. That it wasn’t because I found her to be unredeemable, but it was a sentence that I was required to impose. So this judge says, I’m releasing you today. And that’s it. Done.
She walks out totally free. She now owns a business. I’ve seen her. It’s amazing, right? How many times do we get to see something that you’ve done corrected by this larger system? That really sometimes people say it doesn’t work, but that’s an example that it actually worked, that there was some justice, that she got a second chance. So I think about her a lot, and I think you know how extraordinary that we get to see a correction made in our lifetime.”
Do you feel legislators listen to judges in the state of Washington? Should they listen more?
“I don’t know if they should listen. I would say what’s unique in Washington state is that we respect one another. The legislature respects us and we respect them, and even though we may disagree, it’s a respectful process. So if we come down with a case that they really disagree with in terms of our legislative interpretation, they can change it. And they do. And they respond to the court, and they will put it in their findings to say this specific piece of legislation is in response to the incorrect interpretation that the Supreme Court made in this particular provision, and then they change it and they correct it. That’s part of the process. That’s what’s great, right? That’s what’s so important about a tripartite governmental system is we all keep each other in check. And again, it doesn’t have anything to do with like. It’s just the proper roles that we all share.”
In Washington, judges are elected by the people, but that’s not the case across the United States. I think it’s probably a 50-50 split, where either Supreme Court justices are appointed by the governor, or they’re required to be re-elected. I’m wondering what you think the pros and cons are of Washington State’s system in that regard.
“I’ve changed over time, and having run a number of elections, I really like the fact that we’re elected. We have to go out to people. We have to go to the four corners of the state and talk with people. We can’t make any commitment about decisions, but we can explain who we are, what the branch is about, and we can hear questions from people: what the concerns are, what they’re upset about. That makes me feel at a very deep level, accountable to people. Not to my colleagues, not to the legislature, not to the governor. I feel accountable to people in the state of Washington. I just wish there was a better way that they could learn more about us, even though we publish our opinions and they’re available. I just think the election process helps. When I get together with judges nationally from around the country, I would say that level of accountability that we have as elected judges instills in each one of us a sense of a populist notion of who we are. And that’s the history of our state, right? In our Constitution, right up front, the first article says all power rests in the people. So it’s a nice, gentle reminder that it’s not just an ideological view, that it’s something real. All power rests in the people. As much as initiatives and all that stuff makes people crazy in the state of Washington, that’s our process. It goes to the people ultimately. And I know that other judges from around the country don’t feel that same level of accountability. I don’t know what’s better or not, but I feel very comfortable in ours. I like it. I would not go to the Southeast corner of the state of Washington if I didn’t have to campaign. Why would I go there? Why would I find my way down in the Snake River? It makes me do it, and it’s great.”
The Washington State Supreme Court is really unique in that it’s potentially the most diverse Supreme Court in the country. I’m curious on your perspective: how does having diverse perspectives in the court inform decisions, and what kind of lessons does this particular court have for the rest of the country?
“It definitely influences the discussion, and it’s because those of us who are there bring it up — our view of looking at something in terms of a perspective in regard to poverty or race. We’ve done a lot of work on what it means to actually interpret privacy in the state of Washington when it comes to search and seizure law. The level of awareness about the experience of a young black man versus a young white man is very, very different when they’re stopped by police. And that’s because the law In our state says, when a person feels they can’t leave, that’s when a seizure occurs. So it’s very subjective in many ways, in terms of when that person feels not free to leave. Well, you can argue that probably a black man would get to that point a lot quicker when a cop stops them. Right? Fear of being shot, fear of being harmed, not really trusting the system. That moment of a seizure is going to happen a lot quicker than perhaps a young white male. It’s not always true, but in general, you might say they’re going to have a different reaction. So for us, the law has to respond to this situation. And I think it really makes the discussion very rich when you have a lot of different perspectives. Some people, when I’ve been campaigning, assume that a good court is one that agrees. A good court, in my opinion, is one that disagrees. And what’s so fabulous is the nine of us will get into that room and really go at it. It’s polite, it’s thoughtful, it’s orderly discussion, but oh my gosh, we really have different perspectives. Which makes it rich, because I can see something through the lens which I can’t normally see until somebody brings it to my attention. So I have to say, I think it’s better decision-making. It’s more complicated decision-making. And it doesn’t mean that we always have an ‘I know’ because we don’t. We’re a richly divided court.”
Do you have advice for college students who want to get involved in the political process or in the justice system, but are potentially frustrated or disillusioned with the system right now — which I think is a perspective that a lot of students at our university have, especially given the Electoral College, the Supreme Court and the fact that Trump was just reelected. What do you think? What advice do you think you would offer them?
“I think the advice would to exercise power locally. And that’s not to say that you ignore the national arena or the international arena, because there’s so much going on. My greatest fear is that people, young people, especially those in college, would feel totally disempowered and therefore disengaged. And what happens is you give the political system up to somebody else when you do that. So it’s really important to still feel a sense of power, and that you can have an impact on your surroundings. The biggest concern that I would have– and I’d invite people to get involved. Get involved with school boards and school districts and libraries where books are being banned. I mean, when you think about something that really shuts down the intellectual life of our community, it would be that. There are a lot of ways to get involved locally, and I would say the election outcome is proof positive of the fact that local elections really matter. What is it that keeps Washington, the Western corridor, the way that it is, is people are highly engaged. People are highly involved. People care and put the politics right out there on the table, even to the point where it offends somebody else. That’s good. That’s a really good thing. And the more exercise you get at feeling power and exercising power and being engaged, I think the better you are at understanding power at the next level. Nick Brown is an extraordinary example of that. Extraordinary in terms of his ability to have insight, to understand power, to understand change. He’d be somebody to invite at some point to come and talk to college students about that exact issue. How do you remain engaged, and how do you exercise power at the local level so that you make a difference? Because the worst-case scenario is for people to feel that they have no ability to affect change. And I know everybody might need right now a little rest, a little time off, but not to give up power is really important.”
You’re someone who has had to fight their way through the system, who’s actively working within the system to better it. I’m curious, what are your thoughts on how to engage with people who disagree with you? How do you talk to people who have potentially radically different viewpoints?
“At the court, I’m tethered to eight people, and we have radically different viewpoints. In the room, it’s very civil. It’s done by raising your hand, being recognized by the chief. You don’t talk over each other. The format that we have is we can ask questions — you can’t lecture, you can’t go on a rant. It really is in the form of questions, so that you begin to understand what the other person is trying to say. Outside of that room. I’ll be very honest with you, it’s very difficult. I am not able right now to engage with individuals who, in my view, don’t want to respect the dignity of differences. I’m very concerned about how young people in a non-binary world, are going to live and feel comfortable in terms of being who they are. I worry about that. So am I really open to hearing why somebody hates them without knowing them. I’m not sure I’m there. I don’t have that kind of bandwidth. So sometimes avoidance is a good thing, and I don’t feel the obligation to be engaged at that level. Thank God I’m a judge. I don’t have any political rights. I don’t have speech rights. And that might be a good thing right now– is just to listen, not engage, because it’s very difficult to hear and listen and give somebody the forum to be cruel to others. That’s just not me. So sometimes disengagement is a good time. It’s a good time to think, to study, to reflect. It doesn’t always mean being engaged fully.
Sometimes it’s okay just to be with people who think like you. I have to admit that as I approach Thanksgiving, I’m so grateful that in my family, there’s not going to be debate. There’ll be 14 of us around the table, and we all share the same views, and it’s just nice. It’s nice to feel that you have a safe space and there’s not going to be a debate.”