The Washington State Supreme Court has quietly approved a rule change that gives activist judges sweeping new authority to dismiss criminal charges, ignoring elected prosecutors and lawmakers who warned this will make their communities less safe.
The change to Criminal Rule 8.3(b) allows judges to throw out prosecutions they personally decide are unjust — based on vague and highly subjective factors like “the impact of a dismissal on the safety or welfare of the community (the defendant is part of the community)” or “the impact of a dismissal or lack of dismissal upon the confidence of the public in the criminal justice system.” All the Defense has to do is claim “arbitrary action or governmental misconduct” that prejudiced the rights of their client.
In other words, if a judge feels the criminal “needs a break,” or if they identify with community activists demanding an end to incarcerating juvenile drive-by shooters, they now have the unilateral power to dismiss a case — regardless of what the law says or what prosecutors argue. This doesn’t merely provide activist judges with an easy way to abuse their power to the benefit of the criminals, which they already do when they can, it usurps power from elected prosecutors who are supposed to choose which cases they prosecute.
“This can’t be serious. This is really appalling. I didn’t think that it was actually going to be approved,” State Rep. Lauren Davis (D-Shoreline) said of the rule change on “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH.
The rule change is effective September 1, 2025. And there may not be a legislative fix.
“What will happen is an activist judge will dismiss a case, there’ll be some sort of catastrophic consequence, and then that will probably prompt an awakening or a response. But it gets a little tricky, because the entity that decides whether or not a court rule overrides of statute is the Supreme Court, the same people who approved this… proposed court rule, so they would presumably just rule that their court rule gets to govern,” Davis explained. “And they are continuing to try to take away jurisdiction of the legislative branch into the judicial branch.”
Prosecutor raised concerns over rule change, offers dire warning
The rule was pushed by a coalition of far-left public defense offices, including King and Snohomish counties, and effectively overturns the precedent set by State v. Starrish, which had limited judicial discretion in dismissing charges.
Senior prosecutors warned this would erode faith in the justice system. Colin Hayes from Clark County called it “unnecessary” and a recipe for “disparate outcomes.” King County’s Lucy Pippin said it “untethers the rule from due process” and would allow criminals to benefit even when they weren’t wronged.
Snohomish County Prosecutor Jason Cummings, a Democrat, is also alarmed that activist judges will abuse this new rule. He says the very reason we made previous reforms to ensure everyone will be treated fairly, whether a judge makes a ruling in Seattle, Yakima, Sultan, or Vancouver.
“It was all based in the premise we need to make sure people are treated the same,” Cummings explained on “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH. “This rule change effectively will allow judges, based on maybe they’re more an activist judge versus more traditional judge, of just missing cases where there’s been absolutely no prejudice to the rights of accused, affecting the right to a fair trial and that’s extremely disappointed.”
Cummings explained that we already see activist judges treating issues differently from more traditional judges.
Separations of power
The Snohomish County Prosecutor also says there are serious concerns around the separation of powers.
Judges are meant to be “a mutual arbiter hearing the case,” and the elected prosecutor is meant “to make the determination of whether to bring charges or not bring charges.” But with activist judges? They could easily abuse the rule change.
“This effectively gives a judge an opportunity to dismiss charges against an individual based on some minor error that’s not a material error to the trial. It could’ve been a clerical error. It could’ve been a minor error of the toxicology lab. It could’ve been any type of error that comes up. The defense is going to move to dismiss cause [and] they’re going to claim that it’s prejudice to their client even though it’s not a material prejudice to a client.”
Ignoring the will of the legislature
A similar proposal (HB 1125) already failed in the legislature.
That bill sought to let judges reduce sentences based on their personal beliefs about fairness. Lawmakers said no. Now, ignoring the legislative rejection, the far-left Washington Supreme Court are saying yes — through an obscure rule change that received virtually zero public attention beyond “The Jason Rantz Show” on KTTH.
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But the state Supreme Court ignored the warnings. They rubber-stamped the activist agenda anyway, empowering judges to override the will of voters and the decisions of prosecutors.
“I will say that I have a lot of respect for the judiciary, but there are judges where their vision of justice, or their version of justice, appears to exclusively refer to justice for the defendant, not justice for public, not justice for the victim, and it’s a very narrow view that has predictably catastrophic consequences,” Rep. Davis explained.
Judges have more power than any of us to make us less safe
This isn’t about justice — it’s about control. And it signals another chilling shift in Washington’s criminal justice system: from accountability and law to ideology and discretion. Privately, prosecutors, judges, and lawmakers have complained that the Supreme Court is engaging in dramatic overreach and choosing to serve as legislators.
This will result in some seemingly “low-level offenders” having cases dismissed for second, third, or fourth chances, and will result in an escalation of criminal behavior that will lead to more innocent victims being impacts not just by a criminal, but activist judges that have ignored the needs of the community to lean into far-left criminal justice reforms that have already failed.
If this is how the Court rewrites the law — behind closed doors, in defiance of the legislature, and with zero regard for victims — then we’ve officially entered dangerous territory.
Activist judges may now wear the robes, but they’ve clearly forgotten their role. If they want to write laws, they should run for office like the rest of us. But when you have activist Supreme Court justices, it’s not as necessary. You’ll have the Washington State Supreme Court to fall back on when even the progressive state legislature finds a proposal too extreme.
Listen to The Jason Rantz Show on weekday afternoons from 3-7 p.m. on KTTH 770 AM (HD Radio 97.3 FM HD-Channel 3). Subscribe to the podcast here. Follow Jason on X, formerly known as Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
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Author: Jason Rantz
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