Municipal Court Judge Shadid Blasts City Attorney for Refusing to Send Cases to Judge Vaddadi

Ann Davison's office continues to refuse to send DUI and domestic violence cases to elected Judge Pooja Vaddadi, who filed a bar complaint.

By Erica C. Barnett

Seattle Municipal Court Judge Damon Shadid excoriated the criminal division chief for City Attorney Ann Davison's office, Fred Wist, in open court two weeks ago (recording below) for the city attorney's ongoing refusal to allow Judge Pooja Vaddadi to hear DUI and domestic violence cases. If the city attorney's office continued to deny Vaddadi's right to hear such cases, Shadid said, they could be in violation of ethical standards, even if they have the legal right to do so.

In 2024, Davison filed a "blanket affidavit of prejudice" against Vaddadi, disqualifying her from hearing criminal cases brought by the city attorney’s office. This reduced Vaddadi, who had just been elected, to reviewing traffic tickets—effectively overturning the 2023 election, when voters selected Vaddadi as one of seven municipal court judges. Since then, and despite a Davison has continued to refuse to do so, Shadid said, prompting his unusual statement.

"The blanket affidavit policy of the city attorney's office in this case completely blows out of the water any other blanket affidavit policy of any other attorney in the history of the state of Washington," Shadid said, addressing now-criminal chief Fred Wist in open court on July 9. "Thousands of complaints have been filed in this case."

In a memo explaining that extraordinary decision, then-criminal chief Natalie Walton-Anderson, who is now Mayor Bruce Harrell's chief public safety advisor, claimed Vaddadi often reversed other judges’ findings of probable cause or failed to find probable cause “in situations where, clearly, probable cause exists" and released people accused of DUI and domestic violence without considering their criminal history or the severity of the offense.

For months, Davison's office refused to identify the cases she relied on to deny Vaddadi's right to hear criminal cases. Earlier this year, after getting the actual case numbers and reviewing each example Walton-Anderson and Davison used to justify barring her from hearing misdemeanor cases, Vaddadi filed a formal bar complaint, accusing them of basing their decision on "egregious fabrication[s]" about the cases.

"Despite this showing," Shadid said, "the Seattle City Attorney has continued its policy of filing [affidavits of prejudice, which have to be filed individually] against judge Vaddadi on all DUI and DV cases.

"The city or any party does not need to provide any reason whatsoever for the filing of an affidavit and to presume, as it seems, that we are making decisions based on a prior memo seems... presumptuous," Wist said.

Shadid responded that the city attorney's office has given them no other reason for preemptively disqualifying Vaddadi from all DUI and DV cases, and said that if attorneys working for Davison continue to file affidavits of prejudice based on Walton-Anderson's memo and claims about Vaddadi's bias and incompetence, "I absolutely believe that opens up a city attorney to the same bar complaint that has been filed against Natalie Walton Anderson and Ann Davison," Shadid said.

During a lengthy back and forth, Wist said he had every right to withhold information about which cases Davison used to justify disqualifying Vaddadi from both the court and the public. "I would not go that far," Shadid responded.

"If you knew that the facts behind that memo were false, and if you then refuse to give to the public after multiple multiple public disclosure requests, if you knew that and continue the policy, it is not your right to continue a policy of misinformation about a judge without backing it up while continuing that policy," he continued. "That is not your right. You want to appeal that, go right ahead. But that is not your right."

Davison—a Republican who ran unsuccessfully for city council and Lieutenant Governor, a partisan position, before winning the city attorney's race in the backlash election of 2021—is running for reelection this year, with three challengers running to her left. After a very slow fundraising start, she reported $146,250 in new contributions on July 11, bringing her campaign's total to $225,000 just before the primary.

The other candidates are Rory O'Sullivan (who's raised $202,000), Erika Evans ($217,000), and Nathan Rouse ($165,000).