Justice in Fearful Times: Law and the Red Scares in Washington State

Judge Robert Lasnik is a United States District Judge for the Western District of Washington. He was nominated by President Clinton in 1998, confirmed by the Senate, and served as Chief Judge from 2004 to 2011 before assuming senior status in 2016. Prior to his appointment to the federal bench, Judge Lasnik served as a judge on the King County Superior Court from 1990 to 1998 and spent more than a decade with the King County Prosecutor’s Office, including as Chief of Staff. He received his undergraduate degree from Brandeis University, two Master’s degrees from Northwestern University, and earned his J.D. from the University of Washington School of Law.

Judge William Downing (Ret.) served for nearly 28 years as a Judge on the King County Superior Court (1989-2017). Prior to that he worked as Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney as well as a deckhand on Mississippi River tugs and Puget Sound seiners. He is currently a mediator and arbitrator with JAMS in Seattle and recently completed a 5-year term as a Commissioner on the Washington Public Disclosure Commission. He has been named a Distinguished Alumnus of the UW School of Law and has been honored with several awards recognizing his commitment to promoting civic legal education and transparency in government.

Jennifer Ott is the Executive Director of HistoryLink and an environmental historian. She contributed to A Will to Serve: Stories of Patience, Persistence, and Friends Made Along the Way (2024), Jim Ellis’ memoir, and wrote Olmsted in Seattle: Creating a Park System for a Modern City (2019). She was the general editor and contributor to Seattle at 150: Stories of the City Through 150 Objects From the Seattle Municipal Archives (2019). Her new book, Where the City Meets the Sound: The Story of Seattle’s Waterfront was published in 2025.

Julian Pritchard is an independent historian and writer living in Seattle, Washington. He attended Western Washington University where he studied history, and he is now the Events Services Coordinator at MOHAI and a contributor to HistoryLink. Pritchard’s research interests include Pacific Northwest history, labor history, and the Cold War.