Opinion: Cowards in black robes

Judge refuses emergency protection for constitutional sheriffs facing removal by unelected board.

🎧 Eastern WA Judges Refuse to Protect Elected Sheriffs

Nancy Churchill discusses the hearing that failed Eastern Washington

Nancy Churchill
Dangerous Rhetoric

On Thursday, April 16, 2026, Eastern Washington got its first real look at how the black-robed cowards in our court system plan to handle the brazen assault on elected sheriffs.

Nancy Churchill

Lincoln County Superior Court Judge Adam Walser — shipped in as a visiting judge — sat in Pend Oreille County Superior Court and did exactly what the state attorney general’s office wanted: He punted the entire case to Thurston County and refused to issue even a temporary emergency injunction to block the worst parts of SB 5974 from taking effect at the end of this month.

Let that sink in.

Four duly elected sheriffs filed suit to protect the constitutional right of voters to choose their own top law enforcement officer: Spokane County Sheriff John Nowels, Pend Oreille County Sheriff Glenn Blakeslee, Stevens County Sheriff Brad Manke, and Ferry County Sheriff Ray Maycumber.

The sheriffs asked for emergency relief because the new law strips them of their constitutionally defined authority. It also forces them through a “modernized” certification process controlled by an unelected and politically stacked board. The board, the Criminal Justice Training Commission, can remove their badges without a jury or a vote of the people who elected them, creating an instant law-enforcement vacuum in the impacted county.

Judge Walser’s “sympathetic” refusal

During the lengthy hearing, Judge Walser claimed he was “sympathetic” to the emergency. Then he shrugged and said the quiet part out loud:

“I don’t think the emergent nature presently, even though I am sympathetic to it, justifies taking that very extreme action.”

Extreme? Protecting the voters’ choice of sheriff is “extreme?” Refusing to let Olympia bureaucrats fire elected officials is “extreme?” Standing up for the Washington Constitution is now an extreme act in a Washington courtroom?

Even former King County Sheriff John Urquhart — hardly a right-wing firebrand — told KING 5 he has “a little bit of heartburn with the fact that elected officials can be removed” by an unelected board instead of the voters. “We’ll have to see if that’s constitutional or not,” he said. A law enforcement analyst with decades of experience sees the problem. Our local judges apparently do not.

The disqualification of all local judges

Let’s talk about how we even got Judge Walser in the first place.

On April 9, Presiding Judge Lech J. Radzimski signed an order declaring that the entire bench for the Ferry-Pend Oreille-Stevens judicial district had to step aside. Every single judge was disqualified. Why? The order gave no explanation to the plaintiffs or to the public.

Did all three Superior Court judges really have personal or financial conflicts that required them ALL to recuse? That seems highly unlikely. Isn’t the whole point of having multiple judges in a district to avoid exactly this kind of problem?

Three of the four plaintiff sheriffs are the sheriffs who serve in those three counties. They had every right to file this case in our Superior Court, and to expect fairness and justice from the bench. Instead, the presiding judge passed the case to a visiting judge.

By doing so, Judge Radzimski effectively shielded himself from having to issue a ruling that could anger the voters who elected him — or, worse yet, anger the Attorney General’s office. How convenient.

A decision that failed to protect voters

The visiting judge from Lincoln County, Judge Walser, entered the courtroom with a confrontational attitude. He spent a lot of time questioning the attorneys with an aggressive tone and constant interruptions. Unfortunately, the hearing came across as little more than a show, as if his mind was already made up.

Judge Walser refused to rule on the emergency injunction and shipped the case off to Thurston County, where the state capital sits and where another similar lawsuit from the Washington Sheriffs Association is already pending.

Walser and Radzimski didn’t just decline to grant relief. They refused to even seriously consider it. They hid behind “procedural propriety” and fears of “conflicting rulings” while the clock runs out on the voters’ rights.

The law takes effect in days. Sheriffs could be stripped of their constitutional authority before the ballots for this year’s elections are even printed.

These judges could have issued a simple stay to protect the status quo while the constitutional questions are litigated. They did not.

This wasn’t judicial restraint. This was judicial cowardice.

A blatant assault on Democracy

The people of Washington elected these sheriffs. The people of Washington NEVER voted to create a new bureaucratic star chamber that can remove them. The Washington Constitution NEVER authorized the Legislature to turn elected constitutional sheriffs into at-will employees of the Criminal Justice Training Commission. Yet here we are — watching judges appointed to uphold the law, instead bending over backwards to protect a law that guts it.

Future 42 called this “one of the most direct, blatant attacks on democracy in Washington state.” They’re right. And the first two judges to touch the case just waved it through to the next stop on the conveyor belt.

The fight continues — but voters must act

The sheriffs’ fight isn’t over. The case now heads to Thurston County for a new hearing on the emergency injunction.

But April 16, 2026 should be remembered as the day two local judges in black robes looked the voters of eastern Washington in the eye, acknowledged the constitutional crisis, and chose to do nothing.

Cowards in black robes, indeed.

Eastern Washington voters, remember the names: Judge Lech J. Radzimski and Judge Adam Walser. These are the judges who admitted the constitutional emergency yet still refused to protect the voters’ right to elect and retain their own sheriff.

They should be worried. If sheriffs can be stripped of power by unelected bureaucrats, what other elected office is next? Judges?

Both Radzimski and Walser are up for re-election in November 2028. Their judicial careers in our region need to end. We must start recruiting strong, principled candidates right now so eastern Washington never again has to suffer judges who betray the Constitution and the people who elected them.

Nancy Churchill is a writer, educator, and conservative activist in rural eastern Washington State. She chairs the Ferry County Republican Party and advocates for effective citizen influence through Influencing Olympia Effectively. She may be reached at DangerousRhetoric@pm.me. The opinions expressed in Dangerous Rhetoric are her own. Dangerous Rhetoric is available on Substack and X.