(WSB photo: WS Rotary president Ron Palmer and Justice Mary Yu)

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

State Supreme Court Justice Mary Yu could keep that job for up to seven more years until the court’s mandatory retirement age of 75.

Instead, she’s hanging up her robes at the end of this year. “I’m not going to work until I die,” she explained in a speech to the Rotary Club of West Seattle today.

Her appearance came two months after announcing her retirement, Justice Yu returned to her former home neighborhood – she said she lived in West Seattle 25 years. Here’s our full video of her speech and the Q&A that followed:

Justice Yu’s appointment to the state’s highest court 11 years ago made history on multiple fronts – the first Asian, the first Latina, and the first LGBTQ-community member to serve on it. She told the Rotary today that she’s not able to speak about political matters until two months after she retires, so they didn’t hear any commentary on issues of the day. They did get a lesson in how the State Supreme Court works, and the fact our state has a “non-unified” court system, meaning every county’s Superior Court, every city/town’s Municipal Court, all operate independently – if a case is pending against you in one jurisdiction, for example, another jurisdiction can’t deal with it, might not even be able to see the records. Yu said there’s a chance the state might move to a unifid system some day, and that “might be a good thing,” in her view.

In addition to explaining how the court works – watch the video for all those details – she also talked about where the court works: The Temple of Justice, recently closed for a while to get upgrades – Justice Yu said it hadn’t had central heat or potable water – now it does. “It’s a beautiful building … even if you’re driving somewhere else [and passing through the Olympia area) … stop in and see it – the courtroom is open – and all of the justices love giving kidds tours!”

She also talked about the Washington court being “the second most-cited court in the nation, after California,” particularly because of this letter sent out at the time of the nation’s 2020 “racial reckoning.” She also observed that the court doesn’t set an agenda of what it’ll consider – “people bring us cases.”

Q&A included a followup on the “unified vs. non-unified” court issue Justice Yu had. brought up, what interaction they have with federal court (in light of the immigration situation) – she explained the difference between “constitutional federal judges” and “administrative judges,” saying they had no interaction with the latter. And she said Washington was a trendsetter on relying heavily on its state constitution. Also, a retired lawyer asked about the court’s funding, and that led to a musing from Yu on the philosophy of not funding courts through fines and fees.

Thanking her for her visit, the club donated to Harvest for Hunger in her honor.

ALSO AT TODAY’S MEETING: That wasn’t the only hunger-fighting donation made at the meeting – Rotary-affiliated Interact Club members from West Seattle High School took up a donation that totaled more than $430.

The Rotary Club of West Seattle (a WSB sponsor) meets for lunch most weeks, Tuesday at noon – go here to find out about upcoming programs/speakers.