Born: Friday, September 19th, 1919
Died: Thursday, May 8th, 1997
Birthplace: Lexington, Kentucky
Religion: Christian Scientist
Education: University of Washington, B.S. (1945)
University of Washington, LL.B. (1948)
Career: State Senate (1951-1959)
Superior Court (1972-1984)
Served: Monday, January 14th, 1985 to Sunday, July 17th, 1988
Political Party: Republican
William C. Goodloe ran for the supreme court in 1984 as an avowed conservative bent upon returning the court to a more restraintist approach to the law. During the campaign he repeatedly argued that “the trend of the supreme court in protecting the criminal defendant’s rights as opposed to the victim’s rights has been extremely out of balance.” He intended to restore the balance. A review of Justice Goodloe’s life and career suggests his political experience shaped his restraintist view of the role of courts, while his heritage dictated his conservative values.The Goodloe name in Lexington, Kentucky, identified a prominent family. William’s father, as Judge Goodloe later phrased it, “was born with a silver spoon in his mouth.” William himself was born on September 19, 1919 in the family residence, the spacious Loudin mansion which the judge jokingly called his “log cabin.” Today it is the city’s art museum. Goodloe can trace his ancestry to those who arrived on the Mayflower and participated in the American Revolution. His family included Lincoln’s ministers to Belgium and Russia, and two U. S. Senators, Henry Clay and John L. Wilson.
Despite his initial advantage in life, William’s father, trained as an engineer, never established himself in several business ventures. In hopes of improving its economic position, the Goodloe family, including eight-month-old William, left Lexington in 1920 for California. They moved to Santa Barbara, then Los Angeles, and finally Pasadena, where William attended a military school in preparation for a navy career. When the naval academy rejected him because of color blindness, he enrolled at Pasadena Junior College. The family fortunes improved when William’s mother inherited a modest sum of money from the estate of her father, Congressman and Senator John L. Wilson, a half owner of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer when the Hearst Corporation purchased it. These funds, together with money William’s father earned working at construction projects, saw the family through the depression.
Goodloe’s mother, born in Spokane, urged her son to venture to the Pacific Northwest. He packed his Model A Ford and headed for Seattle with but forty dollars in his pocket. Goodloe planned to enroll at the University of Washington, but could not afford out-of-state tuition. In order to earn tuition money and establish residency, he began working for the General Insurance Company. However, as a member of the reserves for nearly five years, the navy called him into active duty at the outset of World War II. He served in all theaters of the war, saw action on convoy duty in the Atlantic, and won a combat commission. While in the service he married a registered nurse, Phyllis Ruth Clarke, whom he had met while working for the insurance company. Upon discharge in 1945, Goodloe returned to Seattle, enrolled at the University of Washington, and completed requirements for a bachelor of science in law in 1945. He entered law school the next year, completing his law studies in 1948.
The new lawyer first attempted practice out of a room in his boarding house in the university district. As his family grew it became necessary for him to supplement his fees as an attorney by working night shift at the Boeing plant. After a year he moved to downtown Seattle in association with Ed Merges, and the next year formed an enduring partnership with a law classmate, Stuart W. Todd. They practiced together until Goodloe’s election to the superior court.
Soon after establishing his downtown practice, politics, which had bestowed prominence on many of his forefathers, lured Goodloe to challenge the Seattle establishment in an unsuccessful 1950 city council race. The next year he won election to the state senate from the” Thirty-second District, serving two terms. He rose to chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee and minority floor leader of the Republicans. He authored and co-sponsored legislation authorizing the Seattle World’s Fair and proved instrumental in passing a bill establishing the King County Metro District. In the meantime, he mounted an unsuccessful 1955 campaign for mayor of Seattle. In 1958 he lost his bid for a third term in the senate when the right to work ballot initiative brought out labor votes and large numbers of Democrats, dooming most Republicans. In 1962 he narrowly lost a supreme court race against incumbent Orris Hamilton, and two years later lost his bid to become lieutenant governor. In 1970 incumbent supreme court Justice Charles Stafford defeated Goodloe in a second supreme court election attempt. However, two years later he won election to the King County Superior Court, where he served until his successful-and unique – 1984 race for the high court.
Goodloe spent a little more than $17,000 in both the hotly contested primary and general elections during a time when expenditures for statewide supreme court positions could involve over $100,000. In the primary he ran against four opponents: an experienced, moderate-to-conservative appeals court judge, Dale Green, who overwhelmed Goodloe in the state bar poll by 1,411 to 928; a highly popular former president of the state bar association; and two fairly well-known attorneys. In the November election all major newspapers endorsed Green, and even some Republicans lent Green their support. Goodloe, sixty-two years old, had been out of partisan politics since his election to the King County Superior Court in 1972 and lacked name recognition in eastern Washington. Still, he won the November election by more than 85,000 votes.
Two aspects of Goodloe’s campaign account for his victory: he was organized, and he was motivated by a spirit of adventure and optimism. He had begun planning his race two years earlier. Over the years, Goodloe had built a cadre of conservative supporters from those he worked with as Republican state chairman and had met subsequently while presenting slide lectures on “Great Americans” and giving patriotic talks at schools, churches, picnics, Masonic dinners, business luncheons, community groups, retirement homes, and private gatherings. He mailed an advertisement to more than 1,000 supporters, asking them to place it in their local newspapers. Later, the Public Disclosure Commission fined him, and the Judicial Qualifications Commission admonished him for the ad’s content, how he financed it, and a delay in filing reports. Most thought it a trivial matter wholly unintended by him and his campaign manager.
He campaigned in a recreational vehicle with a large sign, “GOODLOE FOR SUPREME COURT,” bolted on the side, and met with groups, editors, and potential voters. He visited every major city and many towns throughout the state, staying in parks and camping areas. He organized a committee of ham radio operators to spread the word of his campaign. With the help of family members, he printed all his campaign materials on his own printing and silk screen press at home. Although all of this cost very little, he had $100,000 in reserve from the sale of an orange grove in California to finance a television campaign. It was not needed. His law-and-order view of the legal system struck a responsive note with voters. Significantly, his opponent seemed uneasy soliciting votes while Goodloe enjoyed campaigning.
Justice Goodloe came to the high bench with some apprehension, an open mind regarding his colleagues, and a willingness to learn. In an interview after serving six months on the court he admitted his apprehension:
I came down here with the objective of looking for the Cardozos. Truly and humbly cultivating them and picking their brains and seeing how I [could] benefit from them … I picked out two very early on whom I was going to listen to and emulate if possible. Now that I have been … here it has been a leveling process. I’ve been disappointed. What it has done is increase my personal esteem of myself and I have not yet found the giant. … I’ve decided as of now that the best thing I can do now is to work hard, study the cases very carefully and just make my decisions the way my conscience tells me. There really is no one as of now I can look to for leadership.
When all the votes were counted in the 512 cases heard by the court during Goodloe’s tenure, they showed that he indeed remained independent. Despite his conservatism, he agreed mostly with Justices Fred Dore and James Dolliver, two of the bench’s activist-liberals. He disagreed most, although not excessively, with James Andersen, a conservative, and Vernon Pearson, a liberal.
As a result of working within a multi-judge court, he changed his attitude regarding the role of dissent:
I came down here with the attitude I would be the lowest in dissent. I’ve discovered that I can’t. Certain things as a trial judge [bothered me]. I’ve discovered that this court needed a trial judge … My basic premise is that I think they are wrong and I am right and I’m going to say so. If I’m lucky they’ll agree with me and I’ll become the majority.
Goodloe wrote more than his share of dissenting opinions and cast more dissenting votes than his colleagues. After serving another year, Goodloe explained further his dissenting views:
I picked this up from Bob Utter. He came in one day and said “Dang you Bill! You joined me in dissent. I’m so right about this that I wanted to be alone.” I’ve come to feel that way about it. I dissent because I think they are wrong and frankly I don’t care whether they join me or not.
However, Goodloe was not a loner. His legislative experience, and, as he described it, being a “political” man, convinced him he should cooperate. When asked if he consulted informally with colleagues, he quickly responded, “Yes!”
Some of the justices call it lobbying and they think it improper. I love to be lobbied because I want to know what they say and what their views are. I don’t say whatever you say is going to be it and my attitude is that if you have any problems or if you have anything to say, I want to hear you … I want to hear everything, every point of view and I’m going to listen. But it doesn’t mean you’re going to sell me a bill of goods and I’m going to buy it. .. Let’s call it conferring.
Goodloe wrote slightly less than his share of majority opinions, but when he wrote for the court, his conferring and willingness to listen paid off. As the assignment judge, he made notes during conference regarding the other justices’ views and attempted to integrate their perspectives into his majority opinions. This enabled him to garner slightly more than his share of his colleagues’ votes.
Although Justice Goodloe remained within the mainstream of the court when writing for it, his dissenting behavior tended to isolate him. This would suggest that Goodloe was either not adjusting personally to some of the other members of the court, to their viewpoints regarding the law, or to the demands of appellate decision-making. For whatever reason, the lack of adjustment was confirmed on June 3, 1988, when he announced he would retire. The sixty-eight year old justice gave no cause for his resignation. However, earlier he hinted at two reasons, personal and legal:
I find it very difficult to come in here as a very idealistic candidate for the supreme court … having some very idealistic ideas on how it works. I find two problems … There was one [law and order] issue before the court that was a very prominent issue in our campaign. Four of us [campaigned on that issue] … I wrote a concurring opinion [instead of sticking with the other three] … What has happened is that they are madder than hell. I’m accused of being a traitor to the campaign.
The personal affront hurt him deeply. He was bothered by the politics permeating the court’s deliberations. Decisions on the court were not “purely law as I thought … I’m disillusioned. This is awful strong language.” Also, he felt that some members of the bench failed to appreciate his efforts on behalf of the court’s celebration of the bicentennial of the U. S. Constitution. As the court’s representative, he had delivered nearly fifty addresses, some outside the state. Perhaps the final straw came when his colleagues discouraged him from participating in the Sixth International Conference of the Association for the Unity of Latin America. Goodloe approved the association’s efforts and its goal of a united Latin America. He wrote the first three drafts of a constitution for the United States of Latin America and wanted to attend the 1988 conference in Santa Domingo. But his colleagues claimed attendance conflicted with the court’s hearing schedule. Thus, for a variety of reasons, his disillusionment reached sufficient proportions by spring 1988, and he resigned.
After announcing he would leave the court, the press made much of Goodloe’s recommendation to the governor that he appoint a minority justice from eastern Washington to replace him. The media quickly, but incorrectly, pointed out that as a retiring justice, his recommendation was unprecedented. Although not common, other retiring and retired judges had endorsed candidates. Nonetheless, the governor heeded Goodloe’s timely advice: if the justice delayed his retirement a few months, his position would be filled by election, depriving the chief executive the appointment. Governor Booth Gardner’s appointment of Charles Z. Smith, a respected African American lawyer, former judge, and law professor from Seattle, to some extent followed Goodloe’s recommendation.
Although he claimed it had no bearing on his decision to leave the court, a week after retirement Goodloe announced he would file against former Senator Slade Gorton for the Republican nomination to the U. S. Senate. He believed Gorton to be too moderate for many Republicans. “I guess the word frustration is about the best way to describe what I’m getting from the grassroots,” he said. “They think that Slade Gorton is on the liberal side of center.” His late start, narrow conservative base, lack of campaign funds, and Gorton’s popularity led to Goodloe’s resounding defeat in the Republican primary. He ran third, attracting only 26,224 votes of over 600,000 cast.
Justice Goodloe did not hide his pride in heritage and country. He often spoke about the greatness of early American leaders, has served as state governor for the Society of Mayflower Descendants, and belonged to the Society of Cincinnati – descendants of officers who fought with George Washington at Valley Forge. The Daughters of the American Revolution awarded him the National Medal of Honor in 1976. He also received the Good Citizenship Medal from the Sons of the American Revolution in 1973, and an honor certificate from the Freedoms Foundation in 1977. Pride in country, reflected by these memberships and awards, accounted for Justice Goodloe’s commitment to public service. It can, in part, explain why he often contested elections, the winning of which appeared impossible. He believed that one should act upon deeply held views even against overwhelming odds of succeeding.
William and Phyllis Goodloe had seven children and eighteen grandchildren. After retirement, the justice continued his involvement with the Association for the Unity of Latin America, and served on the board of the National Center for Constitutional Studies. The Association awarded him the Grand Cross of the Badge of Gold in 1988 for his draft constitution. He also served as pro tem judge in Seattle, assuming special assignments, and was the Washington director for the American Freedom Coalition, a conservative political action committee that organized at the grassroots level and lobbied the state legislature. His conservative observations of state, national, and international politics were published in his weekly The Goodloe Report.
Although Goodloe called his abortive 1988 senate race his “last hurrah” in partisan politics, he had considered a race for the U. S. Senate as an independent under the banner of the American Party and remained active in promoting the party in the state. He organized the Judicial Forum, a citizens’ watchdog group committed replacing activist judges on the state benches with conservative restraintists. Politics was a driving force in Goodloe’s life and remained so even in his so-called retirement.
Selected References
Goodloe’s oral history interview is in the supreme court collection, Washington State Archives, as are the Goodloe papers. Also helpful is the Stuart Todd oral history interview in the same collection, and Goodloe’s monthly newsletter, The Goodloe Report.
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.
