Born: Thursday, October 24th, 1929
Birthplace: Seattle, Washington
Religion: Protestant
Education: University of Washington, B.A. (1951)
University of Washington, J.D. (1953)
Career: Assistant Attorney General (1953-1954)
King County Deputy Prosecutor (1955-1959; 1960-1962)
District Corut (1965-1975)
Superior Court (1976-1980)
U.S. District Court (1985-)
Served: Friday, January 2nd, 1981 to Saturday, January 12th, 1985
Political Party: Republican
Appointing Governor: Ray (Democrat)
Carolyn Reaber Dimmick was the daughter of Maurice C. Reaber, a master mariner for the Alaska Steamship Company, and Margaret T. (Taylor) Reaber, an author and college teacher. With her father often absent from home, her mother provided stability for Carolyn and her brother. Margaret Reaber earned a bachelor’s degree from the University of Washington, taught school for a year, then returned to the University of Washington to complete a master’s degree. Marriage prevented her from pursuing a teaching career, married women then being barred from full-time teaching. She remained at home to raise the family, and occasionally taught as a substitute. In later years she taught at Central Community College in Seattle, and wrote children’s books after retirement. It seems apparent that her strong, independent mother provided a role model for Carolyn.Carolyn Reaber, born in Seattle on October 24, 1929, grew up in that city, attending public schools and graduating from Lincoln High in 1947. She helped with family finances by working in the circulation department of the Seattle Post- Intelligencer.
In the fall of 1947 Dimmick enrolled at the University of Washington, not yet sure of her major. The study of law had not entered her mind: she divided her studies between classes in business and sociology. After completing her third year of undergraduate work, she “went through the [university] catalog and found that you didn’t need a math prerequisite for a law major.” Undergraduates then could enter law school after three years of work and receive a B.A. degree upon completion of the first year of law school. Enthused by a business law class earlier in her studies, she thought a year in law school would be a less painful way to a college degree. The University of Washington Law School accepted Dimmick.
She thrived on the law curriculum, and classmates elected her to law review. However, because of her work at the Post-Intelligencer, she had to decline. She graduated with an LL.B. in 1953, one of only a few women in the class.
Dimmick’s first job, with the attorney general’s office under Republican Don Eastvold, found her writing general opinions. Then she handled the legal concerns of the Department of Forestry. In 1954 she transferred to Seattle as an assistant attorney general attached to the Department of Labor and Industry. Later, when asked to return to Olympia for another assignment, Dimmick resigned in order to remain in the Seattle area.
Immediately after resigning, the King County Prosecutor’s Office hired her for the domestic relations division as a divorce proctor, a job traditionally assigned to women. In that same year, 1955, she married Cyrus A. Dimmick, whom she met while both worked for the attorney general in Olympia. After a year in the domestic relations division, Dimmick transferred to the criminal division, handling morals cases brought to the district courts. In 1959 she left the criminal division to care for an infant son, Taylor, born in 1958.
Her leave did not last long. Several judges before whom she had handled cases persuaded Dimmick to supervise family and juvenile investigations for the courts. She returned full-time to the prosecutor’s office in 1960, resigning two years later when daughter Dana was born. Soon she was again lawyering, but now in private practice out of her home.
In 1965 a vacancy on the northeast King County District Court occurred, and several local attorneys urged Dimmick to apply to the county commissioners for the appointment. Although the position is officially nonpartisan, politics usually dominate the selection process. Dimmick had not been politically active except during her tenure with the King County Prosecutor’s Office, when she campaigned for her Republican boss. Still, the county commissioners, two Democrats and one Republican, impressed with her previous record, unanimously appointed her to the vacancy. At thirty-six she became only the third woman serving in the state judiciary at that time.
From the beginning, Judge Dimmick became extremely active in judicial organizations. A representative listing of her associations includes: American Judicature Society, Board of Governors of the American Judges Association and of the Washington State Magistrates Association, King County Public Defenders Advisory Committee, Judicial Ethics Committee of the Washington State Magistrates Association, Judicial Administration Division of the American Bar Association’s National Conference of Special Court Judges, and Committee on Court Services for Children and Families of the Washington Council of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.
At the end of 1975, Judge Ward Roney of the King County Superior Court retired. Governor Dan Evans, responsible for filling the vacancy and hoping to place more women and minorities on the Washington bench, appointed Judge Dimmick to the post, although Dimmick knew the governor only slightly. On January 16, 1976, Dimmick joined thirty-six men and two women then serving on the King County trial bench.
In King County, Judge Dimmick treated first offenders and those involved in non-violent crimes leniently. She dealt with repeat offenders and those guilty of violence more severely. Indeed, Judge Dimmick developed a reputation for “toughness” regarding hardened criminals; a “law and order” judge is not an inappropriate description. She continued her activities in professional organizations, becoming a charter member of the National Association of Women Judges, serving on the American Judges Association, and participating in a number of Superior Court Judges’ Association committees.
State Court of Appeals Judge Fred Dore won election to the state supreme court in late 1980, vacating his Division One court post. Judge Dimmick applied for the pending vacancy. In the meantime, Supreme Court Justice Charles T. Wright died, creating a vacancy on the high court. Governor Dixy Lee Ray interviewed Dimmick for what Dimmick thought was the court of appeals position. Judge Dimmick recalled the circumstances of her supreme court appointment in these words:
I had applied for [the court of appeals] vacancy. The letters went down to Governor Ray with recommendations for the appellate court position. After I had applied… Justice Wright died and now there was a vacancy on the Supreme Court. I never applied for the vacancy on the Supreme Court. When I talked with Governor Ray I was talking about the appeals court in Seattle … She was talking about the Supreme Court…. Had the only vacancy been the Supreme Court I would not have applied. I did not plan to move to Olympia … So, when you say I applied for it, it was there suddenly.
Justice Dimmick became the first woman to sit on the Washington Supreme Court and only the fourteenth woman on state courts of last resort in the United States. Justice James Dolliver sat next to the new justice on her first day on the high bench and passed her the following note: “Which do you prefer: 1) Mrs. Justice; 2) Ms. Justice; 3) O! Most Worshipful One; or 4) EI Maxima.” Justice Dimmick quickly returned the note with this response: “All of the Above!”
During her four years on the state’s high bench Justice Dimmick became perhaps the most conservative member regarding criminal matters. Her voting record in 1981 placed her somewhat right of center; she agreed most often with moderate Justice Floyd Hicks. By 1984 she had become more conservative, disagreeing most often with moderate-to-liberal Justices Robert Utter, James Dolliver, and Vernon Pearson. She often found herself in the minority, filing dissents. Her goal was not only to win over some justices, but “to keep the majority ‘honest.’ ” She explained her motives:
I would say, personally, when I write a dissent, I hope to get [enough votes to win the] case … I’ll write a dissent where I’ll hope to pick up that opinion with a persuasive dissent. .. Sometimes I’ll write a dissent because I’m outraged … I want to open their eyes. “What are you doing here?” I’ll use rather stark language. I want to get their attention but I don’t want to be overbearing. . . If I don’t get their attention… I would withdraw it before publication. . . I’m not reluctant to write a dissent.
No opponent filed against Justice Dimmick in the 1981 campaign, but in 1984 she faced token opposition. Alan Merson’s primary challenge was, he admitted, a crusade. He felt the constraints placed on what could be said during judicial campaigns by Canon Seven of the Code of Judicial Conduct deprived the public of the information it needed for a considered vote. He found no fault with his opponent; neither did the state bar association, which supported Dimmick by 2,877 votes to 514. Voters returned Dimmick to the high court by nearly 300,000 votes in the September primary. Her name appeared on the general election ballot unopposed.
Even prior to Justice Dimmick’s reelection in 1984 she had become the leading candidate for an appointment by President Ronald Reagan to the U. S. District Court in Seattle. She had the support of both Washington senators, as well as the state bar association and the American Bar Association. To assure that her friend and ideological companion, Court of Appeals Judge Barbara Durham, would be given serious consideration for the vacancy, Dimmick resigned from the supreme court immediately after having been sworn in on January 14, but before being confirmed to the federal post. Her resignation at that moment allowed outgoing Republican Governor John Spellman to fill her supreme court vacancy with Judge Durham before Democratic governor-elect Booth Gardner took office the next day. The gamble paid off when the president nominated her to the federal district court and the senate confirmed her. On April 17, 1985, she took the oath of office.
Selected References
Carolyn Dimmick’s oral history interview is in the supreme court collection, Washington State Archives. Also see Susan Cook, “Carolyn Reaber Dimmick: A Biography,” Dimmick file, same collection; The Olympian, 13 Jan. 1981 and 24 Jan. 1981; Seattle Post- Intelligencer, 28 Jan. 1980 and 8 Nov. 1984; and Seattle Times, 5 Dec. 1980.
The preceding biography is from Charles Sheldon's The Washington High Bench: A Biographical History of the State Supreme Court, 1889-1991, © 1992 by the Board of Regents of Washington State University. Reprinted here with permission and licensed to the public under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License by The Temple of Justice Project.
