Born: Monday, October 24th, 1932
Birthplace: Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
Religion: Catholic
Education: Gonzaga University (1957)
Gonzaga Law School, J.D. (1959)
Career: Law Clerk (1957-1959)
Assistant Attorney General (1959-1961)
Attorney for Washington Speaker of House of Representatives (1963)
Deputy Prosecutor (1961-1964)
Superior Court (1977-1981; 1985)
Served: Wednesday, November 1st, 1989 to Monday, January 8th, 2001
Chief Justice: Thursday, September 30th, 1999 to Monday, January 8th, 2001
Political Party: Democrat
In July 1989, rumors circulated that Justice Vernon Pearson contemplated retirement from the state’s high bench. Democratic Governor Booth Gardner might again have an opportunity to make a court appointment. Pearson confirmed the rumors by announcing in August he would leave the bench on October 31. As weeks passed, Gardner showed little haste in filling the vacancy. Pressures mounted for the governor to select someone from eastern Washington, since only Justice Robert Brachtenbach, originally from Yakima, came from east of the Cascades. After four months of thorough evaluation and behind-the-scenes campaigning, Governor Gardner, the day before Pearson left, finally announced Spokanite Richard P. Guy as his choice.At least eight highly competent candidates vied for the appointment. However, in the fifty-seven-year-old former superior court jurist, Gardner found a person who would bring “a variety of experience to the court” and hopefully provide “balance which will serve all the citizens of the state.” Although Guy was apparently surprised, he had nearly gained an earlier appointment to the high bench when Gardner chose Charles Smith. Since that time he had often reminded the governor of his availability.
Guy’s Democratic credentials, although not extensive, were unblemished. Never a candidate for partisan office, he had served as Democratic Governor Dixy Lee Ray’s Spokane County campaign manager in the 1970s and had worked in Wes Ullman’s gubernatorial campaigns. The Washington State Bar Association had placed him on its approved list. Numerous business and political leaders from both parties also urged the governor to bring geographical balance to the bench. Finally, the new appointee had wide experience in nearly all aspects of the state’s legal system. Many observers anticipated that the new justice would be a centrist on the bench, enhancing his hoped-for conciliatory role.
A product of Spokane’s public schools, Guy graduated from Gonzaga University’s law school in 1959. While in law school he had clerked for family court Judge Kathleen Taft. His first job after graduation was as assistant attorney general, representing the Department of Social and Health Services and the Department of Labor and Industries. Guy moved to the Spokane County Prosecutor’s Office in 1961, serving as the chief criminal deputy. He also served a stint in the civil division. In 1963 he took a short leave to serve as attorney for the speaker of the house of representatives in Olympia. A close friend of speaker William Day, Guy had acted as the family’s attorney on several occasions. That same year Richard Guy and Lynn Kaiser, a career counselor, married. They had three daughters: Vicky, Heidi, and Emily.
Guthrie Industries of Spokane lured the future judge away from public agency work, appointing him corporate counsel for the firm from 1964 to 1966. For three years Guy was area director of a U. S. Agency for International Development consulting firm. This work took him to West Africa and Ethiopia to pursue business opportunities for client investment banks. Upon his return from Africa in 1969, Guy gained appointment as executive vice president and corporate counsel for Pacific Securities Companies. Corporate reorganizations, loan agreements, collections, personnel matters, proxy statements, and Securities Exchange Commission filings constituted his new responsibilities.
In 1977 Governor Ray appointed Guy to a superior court vacancy in Spokane. After four years he resigned from the bench. With his low judicial pay he felt he could not provide college educations for his three daughters. However, he returned to the superior bench in 1985 in a temporary capacity until the governor chose a permanent jurist.
Guy joined the thirty-two member Spokane law firm of Winston and Cashatt becoming a partner in 1982, and remained there until his appointment to the state’s high bench. He practiced largely in the business area, with frequent court appearances.
With such a wide legal experience both in and out of the courtroom, Governor Gardner expected – and Justice Guy anticipated – he would provide a unifying ingredient to an often-divided high bench. Senator Phil Talmadge, a keen observer of the state’s court of last resort, predicted Guy would “bring a solid perspective to the issues and will help build consensus among the justices.” Another attorney speculated Guy was “going to be able to heal some of those wounds, that he can bridge all the gaps, at least for a while.” His approach to the law seemed favorable to the role. In the words of one friend: “He is fiscally conservative, but definitely compassionate to those with true human needs.”
By remaining professional, not choosing sides, and maintaining long-standing friendships with the other members of the bench, Guy also believed he could play a unifying role. He viewed dissent in the court’s deliberations as something to be minimized:
You have a visualization of what you are going to do. I saw myself coming here and really wanting majority opinions [with] wide majorities so that the lawyers and judges could understand that this was a strong opinion of the court and expressed the view not of just the five member majority … I think that is important. I can see coming down on the side of the majority – even having some reservations – because I wanted to deliver [that message] to the bar.
However, he soon admitted that making compromises to achieve a strong majority could be a strain: “The truth of the matter is that you have to be what you are, you have to believe in what [you decide]. You may very well have to dissent and it may be five-four”
His first few months on the bench indicated that his concern for bringing the court together remained strong: he had not yet yielded to a sense of independence. Guy participated in thirty-two of the court’s opinions between his appointment and August 24, 1990, dissenting three times, concurring once, and voting with the majority the remaining times. The court unanimously agreed in twenty-four of the thirty-two decisions. If the pattern continued, and if it could be attributed to the new justice, the prediction that Guy could play a conciliatory role was near the mark.
Guy’s dissenting vote in Johnson v. Labor and Industries seemed to confirm the observation of some that he would be a compassionate justice. He agreed with Justice Fred Dore that the “majority’s erroneous interpretation of [the law] unfairly and illegally deprives injured workers, without spouses or children, of vested property rights.”
His one written dissent, in State v. Fjermestad, suggested that in the area of criminal law – the area most often dividing the bench – Guy maintained a balanced view. Although voting to uphold a conviction, he wrote:
Deterrence of illegal and improper police conduct should be of paramount concern to this court in protecting and preserving the rights of individuals. Whenever such unlawful behavior occurs, the evidence derived from such conduct is inadmissible. However, the effect in doing so should not be so all encompassing that the police cannot perform their function of protecting the public.
Similarly, writing for a unanimous bench in State v. Nixon, Guy recognized the need to balance the rights of the accused with the needs of society:
Our holding today is not intended to expand the scope of prosecutorial discretion, nor is it intended to suggest that a loss of juvenile jurisdiction could never result in a due process violation. We merely hold that absent a showing of deliberate or negligent delay on the part of the State which results in a loss of juvenile court jurisdiction, a juvenile’s right to due process is not violated.
In June 1990, after Justice Guy had completed his seventh month on the state’s court of last resort, former Governor John Spellman announced an interest in running for a supreme court seat. Since a new appointee is normally vulnerable, having not yet established a record and lacking name familiarity, a challenge to Guy, who would be campaigning for the remaining four years of Pearson’s term, seemed most likely, even though three other justices sought reelection.
On July 25, 1990, Republican Spellman officially announced he would challenge Guy in the September primary. The former governor emphasized his administrative experience and public service as attributes qualifying him for the supreme court. For his part, Guy cited his judicial and legal experience. He also maintained that it was important eastern Washington be represented on the high bench. The media saw the contest as a race between east and west, and professional vs. political backgrounds. Guy enjoyed the backing of thirty-seven of the thirty-nine county prosecutors, an overwhelming positive rating from the Seattle-King County Bar Association, endorsement from the state’s leading newspapers, and labor backing. Governor Gardner lent his support, as did leaders in both political parties. Nonetheless, Spellman’s name familiarity and his west-side connections made him a formidable candidate.
Justice Guy’s vigorous campaigning, Spellman’s apparent complacency relying almost exclusively on his reputation-and the media’s ample campaign coverage gave Guy the primary victory. By gathering over 58 percent of the vote, Guy’s name appeared alone on the November general election ballot. With the security of the remaining four years in Pearson’s term, Justice Guy might well succeed in bringing some unanimity to the state’s high bench. On the other hand, this security might tempt the justice to chart an independent course. Justice Richard Guy’s role on the high bench remains to be defined.
Selected References
Guy’s oral history interview is in the supreme court collection, Washington State Archives. Also see Spokane Spokesman-Review, 31 Oct. 1989; Seattle Times/Post-Intelligencer, 5 Nov. 1989; Tacoma Morning News Tribune, 2 Oct. 1990; The Olympian, 31 Oct. 1989.
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.
