Chapter 19

• Jurisdiction: United States

Chapter 19 Management and Reform

Christopher T. Bayley

When my leave was up, Nancy, the boys, and I left Houston and returned to Seattle, where I resumed my post as a senior deputy prosecutor under Prosecutor Norm Maleng. I was still actively looking for another suitable position outside the prosecutor's office. However, upon my return, a series of departures by some very gifted leaders in the office resulted in a change of my plans.

Chris Bayley had fulfilled his promise to not exceed two four-year terms heading the prosecutor's office. He stepped away in 1979 to become the president of Burlington Northern's commercial real estate subsidiary, Glacier Park, where he spent ten years before co-founding New Pacific Partners and then Stewardship Partners. He also went on to Dylan Bay Consulting and start-up investing. Chris ran for a United States Senate seat but lost in the primary. He continues to serve in various community and political activities.

Chris Bayley left his indelible mark on the King County Prosecutor's Office, the community, and the criminal justice system. He embedded in the office what he refers to as the "justice model." The justice model entails both treating people equally and engaging in public debate and seeking reform. First and foremost, he promulgated the mission for the office—reforming the criminal justice system.

I have spent a good part of my life working with prosecutors from all over this nation as a result of running national courses for the National College of District Attorneys and lecturing in over forty states. This has given me an understanding of how prosecutors across the country view the job of being a prosecutor. Most prosecutors would state that their mission is to treat people equally and seek justice, but for many, that is where they would stop. The King County Prosecutor's Office is distinctive in that it has reformation of the system as an explicit objective.

In his book Seattle Justice, Chris made it clear that the mission is ongoing and that it requires hard work and a dedication to doing the right thing. Chris wrote:

But some things never change. Governments that become inbred, that resist change or scrutiny or criticism, always lose their way, whatever the good faith of those inside. I was a reformer once in a time of miraculous, wonderful and positive change. But the need for reform never ends. My hope for Seattle is that its leaders will continue to challenge dysfunction and injustice whenever and wherever it is found in our fair city.⁸⁸

When Chris Bayley left the office, he supported Norm as his successor. Norm defeated his opponent in the election for prosecutor by 54 percent. Norm would follow in Chris's footsteps as an optimistic reformer. Dan Satterberg has likewise made reforming the criminal justice system a matter of paramount importance.

Norman K. Maleng

Norm Maleng grew up in Acme, Washington, which is farming territory. He was an active member in the Future Farmers of America. He delighted in calling himself a simple farm boy even after he became one of the most powerful political figures in King County. In fact, on the second floor of the King County Courthouse is a glass-enclosed structure that is ninety-inches tall, with layered glass panels on a triangular base. It is a light box with a picture of Norm with a cow. It is called "Standing Tall" and was installed in 2010. The structure was created by artist Linda Beaumont who designed the marble floor in the lobby of the courthouse that focuses on Martin Luther King Jr. Beaumont said about her second-floor art piece dedicated to Norm: "I hope that this memorial might serve as a silent sentry to all that enter the Courthouse. As Norm would say, 'Hope springs eternal.'"

Norm went to high school in Deming, Washington, which is twenty miles north of Acme, and he became the 1956 class's valedictorian. He then enrolled in the University of Washington, majoring in economics. He joined the U.S. Army and served in the Quartermaster Corp in North Carolina. In 1963, Norm returned to Seattle and enrolled in the University of Washington Law School, where he became editor of the law review.

After law school, Norm worked with U.S. Senator Warren Magnuson for eighteen months in Washington D.C. Then, in 1968, Norm returned to Seattle, joining an influential law firm where he worked for three years before Prosecutor Chris Bayley made him chief civil deputy, heading the civil division of the King County Prosecutor's Office. Later, Chris Bayley assigned him the role of leading the team of lawyers prosecuting the eighteen-defendant payoff conspiracy case.

As chief civil deputy, Norm's greatest successes were defending the county's right to build the Kingdome in Seattle and in suing the Kingdome's builder, resulting in an award in the county's favor of $13 million in damages. The Kingdome was the home to Seattle Seahawks football and Mariners baseball. It proved to be too small for football and too big for baseball. The dome leaked and in 1994, ceiling tiles fell into the stands just before a Mariner's game was to start.

On March 26, 2000, the Kingdome was demolished in a controlled implosion to make room for CenturyLink Field, later still Lumen Field, for Seahawks football. The Mariners played their first game at Safeco Field, later T-Mobile Park. A news account at the time reported that "thousands of spectators cheered from office towers and hillsides around the city as the series of blasts crumbled the former home of the Seattle Seahawks and Mariners."

There is a similarity between the history of the Kingdome and its replacements and the history of many reforms of the criminal justice system. The reformers of the criminal justice system set out to make things better—to do the right thing. They encounter obstacles and naysayers along the way that have to be overcome. Once the reform seems to have been completely accomplished, it may be found insufficient or even wrong-headed and therefore in need of a new reformation. If that occurs, the status quo needs to be ended (sometimes even totally imploded upon itself) to create a better criminal justice system. Some replacements for the prior reforms are better, and some are not.

Norm understood the fundamentals of reform, and he would change course, even reverse his position if he believed it was the right thing to do. For example, Norm decided to rescind his firm policy of never plea bargaining with the death penalty when he agreed to enter into a plea bargain with Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer, because he thought it was the right thing to do.

Norm was most loved by all who knew him. He cared about the people in the office and his friends and family. He was bright, earnest, and kind. He loved to talk baseball and was a huge Mariners fan. Over time he created a feeling that those of us in the office were a family. He taught me so much. For instance, he taught me that it's easy, as a lawyer, to say "no it can't be done," but that there was always a way to do the thing, provided it was the right thing. If you said, "I've got a problem" to Norm, he would say that it was not a problem...