Municipal Court Judge.
Seattle Municipal Court's seven judges
hear cases involving misdemeanors
and gross misdemeanors, including domestic violence,
DUI, parking tickets, and traffic infractions.
The municipal court also hears cases
involving civil offenses such as violations of the city's fire,
housing, or zoning codes.
Each municipal court judge serves a four-year term
in this nonpartisan office.
This year, all seven judges are up for election.
All voters in Seattle
can vote in each of the seven judicial races.
♪♪
-My name is Judge Damon Shadid.
I'm running for reelection to the position
I've held on the Seattle Municipal Court
for the past eight years.
My two terms in office have been guided by a singular principle,
we can make Seattle safer and healthier
by addressing the root causes of crime
instead of the business as usual approach of jailing people
repeatedly and then releasing them back onto the street
in a worse condition than when they entered.
To accomplish this, I've taken a multi-pronged approach
to addressing crime in Seattle.
First, we needed a more efficient
and effective way of handling low-level property crimes,
I therefore created a new community court
unifying the court, the city attorney,
and the Department of Public Defense behind a shared vision
connecting defendants to services
on their very first court date,
instead of having to wait months for a case to resolve.
Second, we needed better ways to address people
who come to the court system with untreated
and sometimes long-standing mental health issues.
These people can often act out in violent and dangerous ways,
holding them in jail for long periods of time
can often destabilize them further,
making them even more dangerous when released.
I therefore expanded and re-imagined
Seattle's Mental Health Court to better serve
these challenging individuals.
Finally, we needed a better way
to support our essential case workers
who are on the streets every day helping connect
those experiencing homelessness to services and housing.
I created a consolidated calendar
that allows case workers to come to court
just one-half day per week to support their clients
who are involved in the criminal legal system,
thus giving case workers more time to work
with their clients on the street instead of sitting in court.
The common theme behind all these programs is collaboration.
No one institution or program can solve all of our problems,
we must work together to make our city a safer
and healthier place to live.
But we have much more work to do,
and I would ask for your vote in the November general election.
Thank you. My name is Judge Damon Shadid,
Seattle Municipal Court, Position 7.
-I'm Nyjat Rose-Akins,
and I'm running for Position 7
on the Seattle Municipal Court bench.
I love Seattle.
I became a U.S. citizen here, but I've seen it erode
with the breakdown of collaboration across the city.
I'm running for Seattle Municipal Court
to help repair this breakdown,
to improve community confidence in the court,
and to return to an individualized approach
to judicial decision making.
I'm running because I've spent the last 12 years
working with victims of crime in Seattle
and managing our community relationships with police.
In my 12 years at the City Attorney's Office,
I've partnered with community members,
government officials, law enforcement, and businesses.
I've seen firsthand that issues affecting communities
are rarely resolved in silos.
Real change takes collaboration from everyone involved,
a willingness to listen, and taking responsibility
when things are not working.
Systems can always be better.
I'm the candidate that can make Seattle Municipal Court better.
I've worked in the public sector in Seattle
for my entire legal career.
I worked in the Seattle City Attorney's Office's
Criminal Division for six years.
In that role, I developed a great understanding
of all types of cases that come before the court.
While working in the criminal division,
I tried over 60 cases,
I resolved cases in Mental Health Court,
Community Court, and Domestic Violence Court.
My awareness for how a criminal case
impacts all those involved has further deepened
since serving regularly as a pro tem judge within King County.
These experiences in the City Attorney's Office
and serving as a pro tem judge,
have shaped my judicial philosophy.
I understand that the court cannot single-handedly solve
all the problems affecting communities,
but by being innovative
and willing to try alternative approaches,
it can change the course of someone's life.
Judges should lead with compassion
but they also have to consider the facts presented and the law.
And for those reasons, I ask for your vote.