Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison ordered a blanket policy barring an elected judge from hearing any criminal cases, prompting an ACLU lawsuit
Subject of this story
Also named
What happened
In February 2024, Seattle City Attorney Ann Davison's criminal division chief ordered assistant city attorneys to file an "affidavit of prejudice" against Municipal Court Judge Pooja Vaddadi in every criminal case, a blanket policy that effectively removed an elected judge from her own docket and limited her to traffic/parking matters. The ACLU of Washington sued in King County Superior Court in fall 2024 alleging misuse of prosecutorial power, and Vaddadi separately filed a Washington State Bar Association complaint against Davison and the division chief. The policy was rescinded and the lawsuit jointly dismissed only after Davison lost re-election and successor Erika Evans withdrew it in early 2026.
By the numbers (1)
● confirmed by a primary document · ○ reported
Roles
1 source
- www.aclu-wa.orgDocument
directing all assistant city attorneys to file an affidavit of prejudice against Judge Pooja Vaddadi in every criminal case
Sources (3)
Response
Contacted — no response by publication.
Not yet contacted for this story.
What happened next (1)
In early February 2026 new Seattle City Attorney Erika Evans ordered her criminal division to stop filing blanket affidavits of prejudice and to request them case by case, ending the policy that kept Judge Pooja Vaddadi from hearing criminal cases. The ACLU of Washington and the City Attorney's Office then jointly dismissed the ACLU's lawsuit over the policy. Source ↗