Born: Tuesday, March 7th, 1911
Died: Thursday, November 6th, 1980
Birthplace: Shelton, Washington
Religion: Episcopalian
Education: College of Puget Sound (1928-1932)
University of Washington (1932-1934)
Career: Acting Prosecuting Attorney (1942-1945)
Superior Court (1949-1971)
Served: Monday, January 11th, 1971 to Thursday, November 6th, 1980
Chief Justice: Monday, January 10th, 1977 to Monday, January 8th, 1979
Political Party: Republican
Justice Charles Thomas Wright was a soft-spoken, quiet, and gentle man. Deeply religious, he viewed the world in simple fundamental terms. He and his wife Helen put into practice their Christian virtues. According to a close friend:His deep religious faith … translated into a concern for the less fortunate of our people, made him and his wife … almost a one-family United Good Neighbors. While they had no children of their own, they raised and cared for a number of foster children, and over the years shopped and delivered necessities for an untold number of families who were in need.
Wright had an impressive heritage. His grandfather, Henry J. Whitney, was Washington’s first surgeon, practicing in Davenport before moving to Cashmere to continue his practice and supervise fairly extensive fruit orchard holdings. His grandmother, H. Josephine Whitney, a talented artist and one of the first women fully qualified as a physician in the western United States, practiced with her husband.
D. F. Wright, Charles’s father and Josephine’s son from a previous marriage, chose to practice law. He earned both LL.B. and LL.D. degrees from Drake University, and gained admittance to the bar in Iowa and Washington. Prior to his law studies, he had been a professional photographer with his own studio in Davenport. He opened a law office in Davenport in 1900, moved to Coulee City in 1905, and then went to Shelton in 1907, where he practiced until 1914, when he won election to the superior court. Charles’s mother, Fanna Bell (Streator) Wright, also earned LL.B. and LL.M. degrees, passed the bar in Iowa and Washington, and became one of the first women lawyers in the state. Active in a national organization for women lawyers, she had practiced law for a time with her husband in Davenport, but after moving to western Washington concentrated on raising the family. She soon became a leading figure in Shelton’s civic life. The elder Wrights mostly observed rather than participated in partisan affairs, although D. F. Wright had avidly followed William Jennings Bryan. After election to the superior court bench in 1914, he withdrew entirely from partisan activity.
Charles Thomas, born on March 7, 1911 in Shelton, attended public schools there and in Olympia, and the College of Puget Sound in Tacoma from 1928 to 1932. He left without graduating to attend the University of Washington School of Law. His parents had wanted Charlie to study medicine, but he chose law. In 1934 he withdrew from the university to study law under his father. After being admitted to the Washington bar in 1937, he practiced in Union and Shelton, first by himself, then in 1945 in the partnership of Wright and Malloy. After one year he returned to sole practice, where he remained until appointed to the superior court bench in 1949. His practice involved work with insurance companies, banks, the Mason County Public Utility District and general law for individuals. During World War II Wright served as acting prosecuting attorney for Mason County. He also invested in and managed real estate holdings and had Christmas tree and timber interests, as well as oyster beds in Hood Canal.
Charles considered himself an activist in Republican politics prior to his appointment to the trial bench. He ran for the state legislature four times between 1936 and 1942, each time surviving the primaries but never claiming victory in the November balloting. The Twenty-fourth District, encompassing Clallam, Jefferson, and Mason counties, remained a Democratic stronghold throughout the period. Even so, his campaigning stood him in good stead in his later supreme court races. Although his sympathies lay with the Republicans, after his appointment to the bench, Judge Wright always recorded his party affiliation as “independent.”
After thirty-four years on the Mason-Thurston County Superior Court, Judge D. F. Wright announced his retirement in 1949. Governor Mon C. Wallgren promptly appointed son Charles to the vacancy. At age thirty-seven he began a career on the bench that would span thirty-one years. At his death in 1980, Judge Wright was the second most senior jurist in the state.
As trial judge for Thurston County – which included Olympia – Charles, like his father, heard some of the most political cases in the state. Whenever the state was involved in litigation, the Thurston County Superior Court very likely heard the case. While on the trial bench, Judge Wright served as president of the Superior Court Judges’ Association and edited its newsletter, Washington Court Commentaries. He also chaired the committee on the improvement of the administration of justice.
Despite the security he enjoyed on the superior court bench-he was challenged only twice in his six reelection attempts, and in both bids won handily-Judge Wright actively sought appointment to the state’s supreme court. In 1963 he informed Governor Albert Rosellini of his availability. The governor responded that although he considered Judge Wright highly qualified he had “pretty well made a determination” to place Frank Hale, a Democrat, on the bench. Likely, Wright’s earlier Republican activities placed him low on the Democratic governor’s appointment priorities.
Throughout the 1960s, Wright’s name remained on the appointment list but in 1970 he made it known that should a supreme court appointment evade him, he would file for election to the post. When Governor Daniel Evans appointed Morell Sharp, Wright promptly filed for his spot and solicited financial and organizational support from other superior court judges, trial court clerks, state notables, and many members of the legislature. Initially he planned to challenge Chief Justice Robert Hunter, but supporters persuaded him to take on Republican Justice Sharp. The state bar association overwhelmingly endorsed Sharp, who also had the public support of Governor Evans and the Republican party. Even so, Wright defeated the incumbent by more than 12,000 votes.
Some observers attributed Wright’s victory to the fact that he had the same last name as Eugene Wright, a popular King County Superior Court judge before being appointed to the U. S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Although admitting the possibility of such name confusion, Charles pointed out that he had been on the state bench for over twenty-one years and was “probably as well-known statewide” as Eugene Wright. Through his own efforts, those of labor, and the Grange, Wright defeated an incumbent, the first time that had happened in over twenty years.
Again without the endorsement of the legal profession, he turned aside the challenge of popular King County Superior Court judge and former prosecutor, Lloyd Shorett, in 1972, narrowly winning a full six-year term on the court. Shorett focused on Wright’s record as a superior court judge rather than his two years on the supreme court: “I am running against Wright because he was about as bad a procrastinator when he was on the superior court as we have had.” Wright demonstrated his ability to attract voters in his first two supreme court campaigns, and in 1978 he won reelection without opposition.
After his 1970 election victory, Wright summarized his view of judging. He proudly accepted the label of “strict constructionist” in constitutional matters. He favored capital punishment as a deterrent against crime: “I think a man might think twice before he shot a policeman if he knew he might hang for it.” He also believed taxpayers should have the benefit of the doubt in any conflict with government. Private property was, in his view, a vested right. Later, he came under criticism for being nearly five-years delinquent in paying his own property taxes.
In a 1971 address to the western district of the State Association of Counties, Justice Wright revealed his views of many contemporary issues. Sinister forces threatened local government and brought local elected officials into disrepute. “All you have to do is see the slurring remarks in the news media time after time about legislators and Congressmen to know what I mean,” he said. So-called “progressive thinkers,” Indian activists, “agitators,” and “Communists” were to blame. County officials ought not to adopt a civil service program for county employees:
Civil service has laudable purposes, but by the same token it takes control of the people that are serving the public, the people that are coming in contact with the public and it takes control away from the electorate.
As a lifetime member of the National Rifle Association, he also warned against those who would “disarm the people.” Taxation policies would destroy self government. He condemned the centralizing of government in Olympia and Washington, D.C. Local government ought to be strengthened, for there “everything is in plain sight. We don’t have scandals like the Pentagon Papers in local government.” Even so, the “enforcement of the criminal law” must be flexible. A misguided and confused youth should not be subject to the same standards as a person with a criminal record.
Justice Wright worked closely with his law clerks. According to one of his former clerks, the judge “could always be reached during the noon hour (we talked on almost a daily basis at noon). He enjoyed an educational interchange about upcoming cases … Judge Wright was refreshingly unpretentious, unthreatening and one of the kindest men I have ever met.” However, his decisional style remained individual in the sense that he tended not to consult on a regular basis with other members of the bench. One of his campaign ads noted that:
Charles Wright is OPPOSED to the view … that the members of the Supreme Court ought to be considered a ‘team.’ He believes that every case should be weighed on its merits, INDEPENDENTLY by each member of the Supreme Court and that no judge on the basis of his own affiliations should ever be for or against any person or group of persons.
This independent perspective came partially from his reserved and somewhat withdrawn personality and also from the fact that, although close friends with all other members of the bench, he parted from their moderate-to-liberal views regarding law and order and property issues. Thus, although not a habitual dissenter – he wrote 125 majority and thirty-three concurring or dissenting opinions – he often found himself isolated on these issues. He would draft dissents if they “might lay the groundwork for the future” and win over some votes to his viewpoint. But he also felt compelled to “write it as I see it despite the majority.” Although well-liked and respected by other members of the bench, Justice Wright provided no leadership. But he did not intend to be the court’s conscience.
While serving as chief justice in 1978 and 1979, court delay became his special concern. He argued that much of the delay could be eliminated by giving more discretion to trial judges:
Delay is certainly one of the major causes of dissatisfaction with the judicial process … I feel a great deal can be done by placing enough power in the trial judges to eliminate the wholly unmeritorious cases. The means are now available by summary judgment, and similar proceedings, if only the appellate courts would support the trial judges in the use of those means.
After a period of failing health, suffering from diabetes and heart trouble, Justice Wright passed away on November 6, 1980 at the age of sixty-nine. Chief Justice Robert Utter, in a tribute to Wright, said, “He was always concerned about the little person and about injustice and fairness. His opinions and personal life reflected this concern.”
Selected References
See Wright’s oral history interview, supreme court collection, Washington State Archives. Also see memorial services, Washington Reports, vol. 95, 2d (1981), pp. xxxvii-liii; Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 7 Nov. 1980; Shelton-Mason County Journal 12 Aug. 1971; C. W. Taylor, Eminent Judges and Lawyers of the Northwest (1954), p. 375; and Charles Sheldon, “An Interpretation of the Judicial Process: The Washington Supreme Court as a Small Group,” Gonzaga Law Review, vol. 13 (1977), pp. 97-139.
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.
