Seattle Times

Endorsements

Anne Ellington for Court of Appeals judge

Monday, August 3, 2008 — Judge Anne Ellington should be re-elected to the Washington Court of Appeals, Division One. Ellington, 62, is seeking her third six-year term, and is challenged by Seattle personal-injury attorney Robert Kelly, 53.

Ellington has made several bold decisions, including one July 13 on whether the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. was using cartoons in an advertisement in Rolling Stone. One of the images was a woman riding a tractor with film reels for wheels, with the tractor floating in air. The images were photos, not drawings, and a lower court judge said they were not cartoons. Ellington overruled him. By the definition R.J. Reynolds had agreed to in its contract with state attorneys general, she said, they were cartoons.

Another Ellington decision came Jan. 12, in a truancy case involving a 13-year-old Bosnian immigrant girl in the Bellevue School District. Ellington used this case to rule that all children in initial truancy proceedings are entitled to an attorney. No other state offers such a right, but she made a compelling argument that it flowed from the historical meaning of due process of law.

Ellington also made the news a year ago when she signed on to a ruling that overturned part of King County's Critical Areas Ordinances as an illegal tax on development.

The truancy case pleased liberals; the critical-areas case pleased conservatives. In each matter Ellington was able to see a deeper matter of justice. She deserves your vote.

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