Spokane native Colleen Melody selected for state Supreme Court

OLYMPIA – Colleen Melody, a Spokane native and graduate of Ferris High School, will fill an upcoming opening on the Washington Supreme Court, Gov. Bob Ferguson announced Monday.

“After an extensive and thorough process, I am confident that we have the right person for this very important job,” Ferguson said during an announcement in the Temple of Justice.

The nine-member court is tasked with interpreting laws adopted by the Legislature, hearing appeals from lower courts and upholding the state and federal constitutions. Members serve six-year terms, and once on the court, typically enjoy strong records of re-election.

By law, those appointed to the court fill the role until a special election can be held to determine who will serve the remainder of the term.

Melody, 43, will assume the seat of Justice Mary Yu, who will retire from the bench at year’s end. Melody now serves as the division chief for the Wing Luke Civil Rights Division in the Office of the Attorney General, a department the governor established during his time as the state’s attorney general.

She was among about 16 applicants for the position. Among the other candidates was Spokane County Superior Court Judge Breean Beggs.

Melody will become the 100th justice in the history of the state Supreme Court. Once she assumes the role, Melody will join fellow Spokane native and Chief Justice Debra Stephens on the court.

“Anyone who has any interaction with Colleen in a legal setting would all agree that she has a brilliant legal mind. There’s just no doubt about that,” Ferguson said. “She is, in my view, also a creative problem -solver and a fearless defender of our democracy.”

The daughter of a Spokane Public Schools teacher and a state Department of Health employee, Melody attended the University of Washington, where she was a Gates Public Service Scholar. During the ceremony, Melody said she felt like she was “the product of two different communities on either side of the state, but both that cared for me, and fed me and taught me well.”

“And I was encouraged by those who helped raise me to work hard and to give back,” Melody said. “And so I truly love Washington, and I’m proud to serve it.”

Following the ceremony, Melody told The Spokesman-Review that as a student, she was captivated by the trial of Richard Butler, the leader of the Aryan Nations, who was successfully sued by a mother and her son for an attack outside of the group’s headquarters near Hayden. A jury in the case awarded the pair $6.3 million. After Butler declared bankruptcy, the mother and son purchased the compound, which they subsequently donated to North Idaho College.

“That is an arc of justice, or a narrative of justice, that as a 19-year-old was profound to me,” Melody said. “So, it made me start thinking about the law.”

While working on her undergraduate degree at the University of Washington, Melody took a course called “Women and the Law,” which discussed similar stories of the long battle fought by women to ensure civil rights and equality. The course, Melody said, equally inspired her and taught her “law was a way that you could make change and achieve justice, both in small cases and in big ones.”

Melody said that as a child, her favorite teacher was Pat Daisley, her physics teacher at Ferris High School for two years, who she described as “creative in every way.”

“He was a teacher who made school fun and made school exciting to be at every day,” Melody said.

Ferguson first met Melody in 2014, as he worked to establish the attorney general’s civil rights division. At the time, Melody served in the Department of Justice’s civil rights division in the nation’s capital.

“And fortunately, she agreed to come back to Washington state and build our state’s brand new civil rights division, literally from the ground up,” Ferguson said. “Over the next decade, Colleen helped establish that division into what can only be described as a national powerhouse for standing up for the rights of all Washingtonians, and, as we’ve seen over the years, for many Americans as well.”

Ferguson said that while he worried about many things during his time as attorney general, he “never once, for a moment, worried about how any case in the civil rights division was being litigated.”

In the role, Melody led many of the state’s most high-profile challenges to both Trump administrations. During the first Trump administration, Melody led the state’s efforts in 2017 against the first travel ban President Donald Trump issued .

Earlier this year, Melody secured a restraining order against the Trump administration after the president attempted to end birthright citizenship through an executive order. Melody also worked to stop the Trump administration’s attempt to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which allows undocumented residents who were brought to the country as children to remain with quasi-legal status.

The goal of her current role, Melody said, is to “level the playing field.”

“It’s such a privilege to do that work with my colleagues, where part of our role is to just prop open the door to the courthouse a little bit, to make it so that everyday Washingtonians have a better chance to walk through that door and seek justice in court,” Melody said.

As Ferguson described the depth of her work, he became emotional.

“I had the real joy of being with Colleen in the room with people impacted by those cases,” Ferguson said. “And I’m sorry I’m a little emotional, but these were emotional meetings, where we’re meeting with people who have truly been harmed by outrageous conduct. And these are individuals who don’t always have a strong voice in our judicial system, to put it mildly. And Colleen has always been there with them.”

As he announced the selection, Ferguson cited comments from some of the state’s most prominent public officials, including Solicitor General Noah Purcell, who said Melody is a “world-class legal talent who we would be lucky to have on the bench.” According to Ferguson, Deputy Attorney General Todd Bowers said Melody is the “best attorney I’ve worked with in my 33 years as a practicing attorney” and would “make an excellent justice.”

Following the announcement, Attorney General Nick Brown, who assumed his position this year, said in a statement that “even after just 11 months here, it is hard to imagine the office without Colleen’s expertise, savvy, toughness, and caring.”

“Our loss is Washington state’s gain,” Brown said. “There’s no place in Washington where Colleen could be more influential than on our highest court.”

As he began the selection process, Ferguson said he looked for a candidate with the intellectual capacity to handle the workload and the ability to build coalitions between justices, and who possessed a deep understanding of the impact their work will have, among other qualities.

“She is a unique talent. She is going to bring a lot to this bench,” Ferguson said. “It’s a talented bench to start with, but I’m very confident she will be a very influential member of this court for a lot of reasons.”

Melody said she “never dreamt of being a judge” and began to think about the possibility after her return to the state to work in the attorney general’s office.

“When I came back to start the civil rights division here, working with juries in Washington state, working in courthouses that are geographically in 39 counties, plus many of the larger counties have more than one court house,” Melody said. “Getting to travel to all of those places, and apply the law with the local elected jurists and the people in those communities, it was really only then that I began to think about state court service.”

The opportunity to serve on the state Supreme Court, Melody said, allows her to serve in the court system where more than 90% of legal cases are resolved. Melody said she would work to ensure that the state’s courts remain “independent, excellent and models of access.”

“Because Washington state deserves that,” Melody said.