By Jason Cruz
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
Honorable Pooja Vaddadi (Photo courtesy of Seattle Municipal Court)
Seattle City Municipal Court Judge Pooja Vaddadi has been reassigned to handle parking tickets and traffic infractions after a memo by the City Attorney’s Office, which disqualified her from hearing new criminal cases. Judge Vaddadi, a former criminal defense attorney, faced scrutiny by prosecutors because of concern over her rulings.
The Seattle City Attorneys filed affidavits of prejudice to disqualify her on any new criminal cases. The affidavits request that cases assigned to Judge Vaddadi be reassigned to another judge based on a “pattern of biased rulings,” according to the City Attorney’s office.
The filings against Judge Vaddadi come after a Feb. 27 memo by the Seattle City Attorney’s Office Criminal Division was sent to city prosecutors. The memo addressed the issue that the office had with the judge.
“It has come to a point where Judge Vaddadi’s continued rulings prevent the city from receiving fair hearings and trials, and this action is therefore necessary to protect those rights and the rights of those affected by our inability to ensure fair and equitable hearings,” the memo read. “In one instance, she failed to find probable cause for the crime of assault when the suspect threatened a victim with a realistic (though ultimately fake) handgun, based on her belief that there was no alleged touching or contact between the parties. Her misunderstanding is in direct conflict with the legal definition of assault and long-standing case law and widely accepted jury instructions.”
The memo also questioned Judge Vaddadi’s legal analysis of criminal law issues.
“Judge Vaddadi frequently makes erroneous evidentiary rulings for unjustified reasons, rather than articulating any legal analysis. She routinely raises arguments on behalf of defendants without prompting or argument from their own attorneys. The resounding input from attorneys that have appeared in her courtroom believe that her decisions demonstrate a complete lack of understanding, or perhaps even intentional disregard, of the evidence rules, even on basic issues.”
Judge Vaddadi graduated in 2015 from Seattle University School of Law, where she is now a professor in legal writing. Prior to her current position, she served as a staff attorney for the Northwest Defender’s Division, according to her LinkedIn account. She ran for and won the municipal court position in November 2022 by defeating incumbent Adam Eisenberg. Notably, her LinkedIn profile does not show any pro-tem experience (an attorney that sits temporarily as a judge on certain legal issues but is not an appointed judge). While not a prerequisite, it does provide experience for attorneys without judicial experience.
Judge Vaddadi defended herself in comments made on her own behalf and not as a spokesperson for the court. She did not believe that she had issued biased rulings.
“All my decisions have been made within the confines of the law.”
“I have always felt I have been making unbiased, unprejudiced decisions on this bench, and it’s not going to influence how I do things,” Judge Vaddadi said of the city prosecutor’s decision to file affidavits avoiding her. “Technically, it’s not a demotion, honestly I wouldn’t consider it one anyway,” Vaddadi told KUOW in an interview last week. “And judges in other jurisdictions do cover infractions so it’s not outside of what a judge does.”
Independent of Judge Vaddadi’s public statements, the Seattle City Attorney’s Office offered its own response.
“The Seattle City Attorney’s decision to affidavit Judge Vaddadi on all new criminal case filings will impact the Seattle Municipal Court. Judge Vaddadi will not be able to handle arraignments (first appearance hearings), or subsequent pretrial hearings or trials for new cases filed with an affidavit,” the statement went on to state, “This is a challenging time for the court because we are in the process of transitioning to a new case management system which is also impacting our calendar capacity for the next couple of weeks.”
Jason can be reached at info@nwasianweekly.com.