Bellingham is the county seat of Whatcom County in the U.S. state of Washington. It lies 21 miles (34 km) south of the U.S.–Canada border,between Vancouver,British Columbia,52 miles (84 km) to the northwest and Seattle 90 miles (140 km) to the south.
Whatcom County is a county located in the northwestern corner of the U.S. state of Washington,bordered by the Lower Mainland of British Columbia to the north,Okanogan County to the east,Skagit County to the south,San Juan County across Rosario Strait to the southwest,and the Strait of Georgia to the west. Its county seat and largest population center is the coastal city of Bellingham,comprising the Bellingham,WA Metropolitan Statistical Area,and as of the 2020 census,the county's population was 226,847.
Joan Ruth Bader Ginsburg was an American lawyer and jurist who served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court of the United States from 1993 until her death in 2020. She was nominated by President Bill Clinton to replace retiring justice Byron White,and at the time was viewed as a moderate consensus-builder. Ginsburg was the first Jewish woman and the second woman to serve on the Court,after Sandra Day O'Connor. During her tenure,Ginsburg authored the majority opinions in cases such as United States v. Virginia (1996),Olmstead v. L.C. (1999),Friends of the Earth,Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services,Inc. (2000),and City of Sherrill v. Oneida Indian Nation of New York (2005). Later in her tenure,Ginsburg received attention for passionate dissents that reflected liberal views of the law. She was popularly dubbed "the Notorious R.B.G.",a moniker she later embraced.
The U.S. state of Washington enforced capital punishment until the state's capital punishment statute was declared null and void and abolished in practice by a state Supreme Court ruling on October 11,2018. The court ruled that it was unconstitutional as applied due to racial bias;however,it did not render the wider institution of capital punishment unconstitutional and rather required the statute to be amended to eliminate racial biases. From 1904 to 2010,78 people were executed by the state;the last was Cal Coburn Brown on September 10,2010. In April 2023,Governor Jay Inslee signed SB5087 which formally abolished capital punishment in Washington State and removed provisions for capital punishment from state law.
The United States District Court for the Western District of Washington is the federal district court whose jurisdiction comprises the following counties of the state of Washington:Clallam,Clark,Cowlitz,Grays Harbor,Island,Jefferson,King,Kitsap,Lewis,Mason,Pacific,Pierce,San Juan,Skagit,Skamania,Snohomish,Thurston,Wahkiakum,and Whatcom. Its courthouse,built in 2004,is located at 7th and Stewart in Seattle.
Barbara Joan Pariente is an attorney and jurist from Florida. She was chief justice of the Florida Supreme Court from July 1,2004,until June 30,2006. Pariente is the second woman to hold the position of chief justice and served on the court from 1997 to 2019. From 1993 to 1997 she was a judge on Florida's Fourth District Court of Appeal.
Mary Elizabeth Fairhurst was an American attorney and jurist who served as a justice and chief justice of the Washington Supreme Court.
The Washington Court of Appeals is the intermediate level appellate court for the state of Washington. The court is divided into three divisions. Division I is based in Seattle,Division II is based in Tacoma,and Division III is based in Spokane.
The history of Bellingham,Washington,as it is now known,begins with the settling of Whatcom County in the mid-to-late 19th century.
Mary Kay Becker has served as a Washington state judge on the Washington Court of Appeals,a former paralegal,Democratic member of the Washington House of Representatives and newspaper editor.
Mary Isabel Yu is an American lawyer who has served as an associate justice of the Washington Supreme Court since 2014. She served as a judge of the King County Superior Court from 2000 to 2014. She is the state's first openly gay,Asian American,and Latina justice.
Robert French Utter was an American attorney and jurist from Washington. He served as a King County Superior Court judge from 1964 until his appointment to the Washington Court of Appeals in 1968. In 1971 he was appointed to the Washington Supreme Court,where he served for 23 years,including two years as the chief justice. Utter is known for his opposition to the death penalty. He dissented in two dozen cases on capital punishment while on the court and resigned in 1995 in protest of it. After resigning from the court,Utter taught the first state constitutional law course in Washington State at the University of Puget Sound School of Law and traveled around the world to help developing nations create independent judiciaries. He died in 2014.
General elections were held in the U.S. state of Washington on November 3,2020. A primary was held on August 4.
Grace Helen Whitener,known professionally as G. Helen Whitener,is a Trinidadian-American attorney serving as an associate justice of the Washington Supreme Court. Whitener was nominated by Governor Jay Inslee on April 13,2020,to fill the seat of retiring justice Charles K. Wiggins.
Native Americans and Jewish Americans have interacted throughout much of the history of the United States,beginning with the arrival of European Jews in North America in the 17th century. As the Naturalization Act of 1790 limited naturalization to "free white persons",European Jews were allowed to settle in the United States and become citizens due to being legally classified as white. A small number of American Jews acquired ownership of Indigenous land during the 1800s and early 1900s,following the passage of the Homestead Acts. While early Jewish immigrants often behaved like other settlers in their relationship to Native Americans,later generations of American Jews felt a greater level of sympathy for Native American rights. A small but significant number of scholars and lawyers between the 1930s and 1950s who defended the rights of Native Americans were Jewish,most notably Felix S. Cohen,a Department of the Interior official who drew parallels between the suffering of Native Americans and that of German Jews and was one of the primary legal architects of the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934. The Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism has stated that "Jews and American Indians have much in common",citing similar concerns and challenges regarding assimilation,religious rights,and preserving cultural heritage.
