Judicial data via CourtListener (Free Law Project). Social links via Wikidata.
Affiliations
District Court, E.D. Washington — appointed by Richard Nixon
Party: Republican →B.A., Western Washington UniversityBA, Washington State UniversityJD, University of Idaho
Decision levers
AI-measured from their own opinions — each lever cites its cases
Willing to revisit precedentStrong stare decisis
Strictly applies and quotes controlling Supreme Court precedent on severance damages and independent parcels without questioning its validity [0]. United States v. Easements Upon … ↗
Deference to government powerSkepticism of government power
The case involves a dispute over rights to the surface and groundwater of No Name Creek, a small waterway lying entirely within the Colville Indian Reservation. The Colville Confederated Tribes sued non-Indian defendants Walton to enjoin their use of the water, asserting superior reserved rights for irrigation and trout spawning; Waltons claimed rights both as successors to original Indian allottees and under a state-issued permit, while the State of Washington intervened to assert its own regulatory authority. The court consolidated the actions and stated it must determine the relative priorities among the Tribe, Waltons, and the State, as well as which entity holds power to allocate and control the water. The reasoning rests on the creek's location inside reservation boundaries established by executive order, the hydraulic connection between surface and ground waters, historical allotment and irrigation patterns, and the reserved-rights doctrine tied to the purpose of the reservation.
This case involves a farmworker challenging alleged practices by Immigration and Naturalization Service officers in the Yakima Valley, including nighttime flashlight searches of his tent and cabin residences without warrants or consent, as well as an officer reaching inside a door. The plaintiff claimed these actions formed a pattern of unlawful interrogation, harassment, and searches violating the Fourth Amendment. The court denied the defendants' motion for summary judgment, holding that the alleged intrusions into private homes differed from consent-based encounters in prior precedent and could not qualify as plain-view searches due to the use of flashlights in darkness. It found genuine issues of material fact regarding the officers' conduct that made summary judgment inappropriate.
The case is a Farm Home Administration mortgage foreclosure action brought by the United States against the defendant borrowers. The defendants opposed foreclosure on the ground that the government had not complied with statutory and regulatory requirements for notifying them of possible moratorium relief under 42 U.S.C. § 1475 and 7 C.F.R. 1861.10. The court denied the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, holding that the regulation requires the County Supervisor to give borrowers written notice of moratorium availability when payments are missed and that acceleration of the loan after default does not remove the loan from the statute's protection. The court further concluded that publication of the regulation in the Federal Register does not satisfy the regulation's specific notice requirement.
This case involves the United States seeking to foreclose on a Farm Home Administration loan made to the defendant. The court held that the FmHA must comply with regulations requiring notice to delinquent borrowers about available moratorium relief, along with related hearing and appeal procedures, before foreclosure can proceed, and it stayed the action pending such compliance. The court reasoned that the regulations apply to the loan despite the acceleration occurring before their effective date, that a prior foreclosure action did not bar the defense, and that eligibility for relief is a factual matter for the agency to determine initially.
Jerry Lewis, an inmate at the Washington State Penitentiary, petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U.S.C. § 2254, claiming that his guilty pleas to robbery and first-degree murder were invalid because he was mentally incompetent to waive his constitutional rights due to severe brain damage from a police shooting. The court noted that Lewis had been found competent to stand trial after initial incompetency proceedings but that the trial court accepted his pleas eight days later with only brief questioning and without a separate hearing on his capacity to make a reasoned choice regarding the plea. Drawing on Ninth Circuit precedents such as Sieling v. Eyman and de Kaplany v. Enomoto, the court explained that the standard for competency to plead guilty is higher than for standing trial and requires an inquiry into whether mental illness substantially impaired the defendant's ability to understand the consequences and choose among alternatives. The court therefore ordered that the writ would be granted unless the state obtained a trial court review, within 60 days, of Lewis's competency to enter the guilty pleas at the time they were made.
The case involved the federal government's exercise of eminent domain to acquire a clearance easement over 104.09 acres of the defendants' land near Fairchild Air Force Base, restricting its use to agricultural purposes and allegedly rendering a portion previously used for mining unusable. The defendants argued that the affected land should be considered part of their larger 450-acre holding for purposes of determining compensation, while the government contended the parcels formed a unified tract based on potential industrial use. The court held that the northwest quarter of Section 34, which was zoned and used for mining, constituted a separate parcel from the defendants' other lands zoned and used for agriculture, with no unity of use connecting them despite proximity. It rejected reliance on highest and best use for determining tract unity, instead applying the test of actual current use and zoning to conclude the parcels were legally distinct.