Raquel Montoya-Lewis is the first Native American to be appointed to the Washington Supreme Court.
OLYMPIA, Wash-Raquel Montoya-Lewis was recently named as the first Native American to serve on the Washington Supreme Court, and only the second Native American to serve on any state supreme court in the nation.
Montoya-Lewis's experience includes serving as the chief judge for the Nooksack and Skagit tribes and the Northwest intertribal courts. She has been an associate professor at Western Washington University, and is in her fifth year on the Whatcom County Superior Court, to which she was appointed by Inslee and ran unopposed for election and later for re-election. Montoya-Lewis presided over felony drug court for the last two years.
A member of the Pueblo of Isleta tribe of New Mexico, as she stood in front of the nine current justices and Inslee, Montoya-Lewis said, "I come from those who survived" referring to ancestors who were subjected to genocide, being sent away to boarding schools, and other attempts to eradicate their culture. "I am here because of them." She added that statistics show Native Americans are "disproportionately represented on every level of the criminal justice system," she said.
Montoya-Lewis is replacing Mary Fairhurst, the current chief justice who is retiring at the beginning of 2020 to battle cancer.
Montoya-Lewis, 51, was born in Spain, where her father was stationed in the U.S. Air Force. They moved every few years while she was growing up with his assignments. After a bachelor's degree from the University of New Mexico, she came to the University of Washington for law school. After receiving her law degree, she got a master's in social work from UW because, she said, she wanted to blend her legal training with an understanding of how the law affects people.
She applied for the opening because she considers the work the Supreme Court does critical, but she said she will miss being a trial court judge.
"I love working directly with people," she said. "I like the drama of the courtroom" where a judge can make decisions and see the results.
