Mary Yu could be the primary to acknowledge that her lengthy, impactful profession as a lawyer, trial court docket decide and Washington Supreme Courtroom justice was removed from what she’d envisioned rising up the daughter of immigrants simply outdoors of Chicago. In actual fact, the principle aspirations instilled in her and her brother had been to be taught to learn and keep out of bother.
She succeeded in each and at the same time as a university scholar at Dominican College she was on monitor to turn into a instructor. However it was her expertise working on the Archdiocese of Chicago that pointed her to the sphere of regulation. And now, practically 50 years later, she has determined to go away that profession.
Yu, 68, will retire on the finish of the yr after 11 years as a justice. Although her six-year time period doesn’t expire till the top of 2028, her resolution was influenced by the death of Washington Justice Susan Owens in March, three months after she retired.
“I need to attempt various things whereas I’m nonetheless wholesome and may do it,” Yu stated.
Amongst her famous written opinions was for the unanimous ruling in a 2023 voting rights case the place Latino voters in Franklin County complained of voter suppression. Yu wrote: “The WVRA (Washington Voting Rights Act) protects all Washington voters from discrimination on the premise of race, coloration and language minority group.”
A 2024 resolution stated felony defendants can’t be required to look for nonjury proceedings from an “in-court holding cell” with out a outlined safety danger. Yu wrote: Requiring a defendant to look from an in-court holding cell “undermines the presumption of innocence, interferes with a defendant’s potential to speak with counsel, and violates the dignity of the defendant and the court docket proceedings.”
And in 2022, the court docket addressed racial profiling in police stops. Yu wrote: “As we speak, we formally acknowledge what has all the time been true: In interactions with regulation enforcement, race and ethnicity matter” when figuring out the legality of police seizures.
Her dedication to public service stretched past the halls of justice.
The pivotal second in her profession, and what she stated she’s most happy with, is officiating a whole lot of weddings, notably same-sex unions. She referred to as it “a privilege.”
She has mentored dozens of regulation college students and younger attorneys; she has volunteered her time and expertise with the Seattle Women College Mock Trials; and he or she has taught regulation at Seattle College College of Regulation, the place a scholarship is endowed in her name.
Yu stated she is going to spend her time probably writing youngsters’s books, championing voters rights and tutoring. The subject material? Studying, in fact.
