Courts & rulings
Washington · highest court
Washington Supreme Court
Elected (nonpartisan)
Chief: Elected by peer vote of the justices to a four-year term as Chief Justice; Debra L. Stephens has served as Chief Justice since January 2025..
Justices
All judges & justices →- Debra L. Stephens
- Charles W. Johnson
- Steven C. González
- Sheryl Gordon McCloud
- Raquel Montoya-Lewis
- G. Helen Whitener
- Salvador A. Mungia
- Colleen M. Melody
- Theodore J. Angelis
Roster as of 2026-06-13.
Constitution of the State of Washington
Adopted 1889. Its declaration of rights sits in Article I (Declaration of Rights). This court has the final word on what the Washington constitution means.
Interstitial, departs when state-specific factors justify it
How a state reads its own rights provisions relative to the federal floor, lockstep vs departure.
State-court structure and selection methods are from official and reference sources; the justice roster is point-in-time. Civibrief carries each state's highest court (lower state courts are out of scope for now).