Whatcom County Prosecuting Attorney's Office

EXPLAINING HOW DISTRICT COURT WORKS:

People are wondering how the disqualification of District Court Judge Jonathan Rands became overblown and a distraction. In short, our office legally disqualified Judge Rands from a number of cases, and the judge refused to follow the law and recuse himself. A higher judge has now ruled that he was wrong.

Here is the explanation regarding how this normally works and why it became an issue in this situation:

The filing of an affidavit of prejudice, sometimes known as a notice of disqualification, is not unusual. An affidavit of prejudice permits a litigant to disqualify a judge they think might not be fair in a particular case. Filing these affidavits is a right of all litigants, including both defendants and prosecutors. I have personally filed some affidavits and I bet that Judge Rands filed some when he was a private attorney.

All judges in Whatcom County receive these affidavits of prejudice. Some judges receive more than others for various reasons. Some judges don’t like them. Others are indifferent. But all of them follow the law and recuse themselves when they are filed.

What made this situation different was how Judge Rands reacted to receiving affidavits. Rather than recuse himself as law requires, he rejected them. He didn’t follow the law, and his reasons were not (proper/legal/sensible/sufficient). He tried to say our office filed the affidavits too late, which was (incorrect). Our office had to ask a higher court to make him follow the law. Yesterday Judge Robert Olson of the Whatcom County Superior Court told Judge Rands that rejecting the affidavits was “obvious error.”

Judge Olson further chastised those who attempted to win this case in the court of public opinion rather than the court of law. This included attorneys who knew (or should know) the law. Judge Olson had especially strong words for the lower court judges who wrote an opinion piece in the Herald for inappropriately attempting to influence his decision.

There is a written statute that allows anyone who goes to court to disqualify one judge they don’t think will be fair in their case. Doing this requires no proof of prejudice or even a reason.

Even though it wasn’t required, the Whatcom County Prosecutor’s Office had a valid reason. That reason was to protect community safety. My office had no plans to disqualify Judge Rands until he indicated that he was going to entertain motions to dismiss DUI cases based on (failed) arguments he spearheaded as a DUI defense attorney prior to becoming a judge. He had an apparent conflict in these specific cases. My deputy prosecutors told me about this, and we decided that disqualifying Judge Rands was the proper legal thing to do and necessary to protect the community.
DUI’s must be taken seriously. They are inherently dangerous and can lead to serious injury or death. DUI is so serious that our State legislature has proposed lowering the legal breath test limit in DUI cases this year.

We had ten (10) days to act from the date Judge Rands was assigned the cases, so we acted quickly. Judge Rands’ refusal to recuse himself was very odd, and his eagerness to hear these cases made me even more concerned.

The one-sided stories that began to pop up in the media from attorneys were even more concerning. Judge Rands’ own attorney, Steve Hayne, suggested that I might have filed the affidavits for political reasons. Other opinions followed, largely ignoring the law in favor of critiquing the practice of disqualifying judges, which is legal and a regular practice employed by most attorneys. I could not respond because the rules of professional conduct prohibit me from speaking to the press while litigation was pending and my office is a party. I can speak now.

I was not motivated by politics to file affidavits of prejudice, as some speculated. I only required Judge Rands to recuse himself from DUI cases he had a close connection with from his private practice prior to becoming a judge. If I was such a political zealot, I wouldn’t have said nice things about Jonathan Rands in the Western Front newspaper, in October of 2022, just prior to his election.
https://www.westernfrontonline.com/article/2022/10/whatcom-county-judge-candidates-campaign-on-equitable-access-to-justice. The truth is that I had no animosity toward Jonathan Rands. His refusal to follow the law came as a surprise, and we dealt with it by simply asking a higher court for review. And we were right.
I’d like to note that Judge Rands was disqualified from only about 6% of District Court cases. Our filing affidavits has not caused a burden or increased costs to District Court.

Since Judge Olson put this distraction to rest, I now hope and expect that business in District Court will go on as normal.

SENTENCING UPDATE:

On August 2, 2022 the court sentenced Kamee Dixon to 34 years in prison for the aggravated homicide by abuse of a three-year-old child.

The Whatcom County Prosecutor’s Office urged the court to impose 57 years in prison, based on the jury finding that the victim was particularly vulnerable and that the defendant abused a position of trust. We believe 57 years would have been a fair and just sentence, but we understand that sentencing is the court’s purview and respect the court’s authority. We are obviously saddened by this case, but thank all of those who keep the victim’s memory alive.

In remembrance, we would ask the community to be vigilant and to immediately report suspected abuse of children.