Author: Northwest Justice Project

Pat, an army veteran who made her way to Evergreen Middle School Thursday, July 10, found a haircut, a referral to a dentist, a backpack full of toiletries, information on housing resources and free legal advice.

The Tulalip Tribes are now one of just three Native American tribes in the country to take advantage of a federal program designed to better combat domestic violence on tribal lands.

A group of disabled and elderly tenants being priced out of a Seattle apartment building are striking back.

King County Executive Dow Constantine named 11 highly-regarded leaders in indigent defense and the protection of the rights of the accused to serve on the County’s first-ever Public Defense Advisory Board.

The U.S. Senate confirmed Sal Mendoza Jr. to become the first Latino federal judge in Eastern Washington on Tuesday morning with a vote of 92- 4. He is expected to be based in either Yakima or Richland.

Over the past decade, towns and counties across the United States have been locking up a growing number of people for failing to pay their debts. The American Civil Liberties Union and the Brennan Center for Justice documented the practice in 2010, and Human Rights Watch released the results of its own investigation earlier this year.
Critics have decried the return of the debtors prison, the reviled institution of Charles Dickens’ day. Now, a short documentary, “To Prison for Poverty,” sheds light on a particularly contentious aspect of the story.

OLYMPIA – With people who inspired her standing at her side and some she hoped to inspire sitting in the audience, Mary Yu was sworn in Tuesday to a state Supreme Court seat she’s almost sure to hold for the next two years despite being on the ballot this fall.

Series on the impact of legal financial obligations for low-income people.

User fees are a fact of life in America — those inscrutable “administrative” charges tacked on to everything from checking luggage to buying theater tickets to applying for college. For people with the ability to pay, they are an irritation. But such fees are increasingly being levied on people caught up in the criminal justice system, who are overwhelmingly among the poorest members of society.

Billy Frank Jr., the charismatic leader in the successful battle over fish, was praised by President Obama: “Thanks to his courage and determined effort, our resources are better protected, and more tribes are able to enjoy the rights preserved for them more than a century ago.”