Barbara Madsen

Justice Madsen signed a 2020 letter that said, "The legal community must recognize that we all bear responsibility for this on-going [racial] injustice, and that we are capable of taking steps to address it, if only we have the courage and the will."

Excerpt from Facebook post:

• 9/11/17, "Michelle, on my right, has just started her own civil rights practice, supported by her girlfriend, who is also working on systemic changes in aid of preserving civil rights for us all. I couldn't be more proud."

Excerpts from Justice Madsen's responses to a 2016 questionnnaire:

• "I was appalled at the Senate's treatment of Anita Hill, who worked for Clarence Thomas and had the courage to talk about the sexual harassment that she suffered in his office. I decided that I had to stand up...Since I could not expect to join the Congree or the U.S. Supreme Court, I decided to run for the state Supreme Court, ensuring that women in the legal profession would have a voice in shaping the profession."
• The most important qualifications for a judge include "an understanding of different cultural, racial, ethnic, gender, and ability perspectives" and "an understanding that the public must be the focus of the courts."
• "These 'reforms' [on drug-sentencing laws] have resulted in a 'war' mentality on the part of many law enforcement agencies. This has, in part, been the cause of unwarranted assaults and even deaths in the black communities, which are more heavily policed for drugs and who are more likely to be charged with crimes, serve longer jail sentences, and more likely to be stereotyped as criminals than their white counterparts."
• Justice Madsen was endorsed by NARAL and the Log Cabin Republicans in her 2016 run for Washington Supreme Court.

Notable court cases:

• Madsen signed the majority in Ingersoll v. Arlene's Flowers (2017), in which the Washington Supreme Court declared that not even a strict-scrutiny test would protect a florist's religious freedom to refuse service to gay weddings.
• Justice Madsen wrote the majority opinion in Woods v. Seattle's Union Gospel Mission (2021), arguing that a religious employer could only legally deny someone employment on the basis of sexual orientation if the job in question were ministerial. Justice Madsen wrote, "Meaning is discerned from the language itself, the context and related provisions in relation to the subject of the legislation, the nature of the act, the general object to be accomplished, and the consequences that would result from construing a statute in a particular way" (see p. 12).
• The Black v. Central Puget Sound Regional Transit Authority (2020) case concerned a law that failed to meet the Washington Constitution's requirements by amending another law without quoting it. Justice Madsen signed the majority opinion, which held that the law in question did not actually violate the Washington Constitution because anyone could understand the new law without conducting research on other laws.
• In State v. Gregory (2018), the Washington Supreme Court held that the death penalty as currently administered was unconstitutional. Justice Madsen signed a concurrence that agreed with the court's decision and added: "[R]eview of the constitutionality of the death penalty system must analyze the issue in contemporary terms and practices, and the constitutional analysis, at a minimum, must include a systemic determination of randomness, consensus, arbitrariness, frequency, reliability, trends, and penological justifications" (see p. 10 of Justice Johnson's concurrence).
• See also State v. Blake (2021), Leishman v. Ogden Murphy Wallace, PLLC (2020), Colvin v. Inslee (2020), In re Recall of Inslee (2019), Eyman v. Wyman (2018), Watson v. City of Seattle (2017), McCleary v. Washington (2012), and City of Seattle v. McKenna (2011).