Minority-lawyers groups upset by court candidate's use of slur

A word used 12 years ago by state Supreme Court candidate Jeff Sullivan is coming back to haunt him.

Members of four statewide minority bar associations demanded Sullivan apologize for using the term "wetback" once in reference to undocumented immigrants during a judicial conference held in the late 1980s.

"I said it," Sullivan said Thursday. "I regretted saying it at the time, and I apologized immediately. It is a word I haven't used before or since. I'm still sorry I said it."

With five days left until the general election, bar associations representing Asian, black, Hispanic and American Indian attorneys held a news conference Thursday to criticize Sullivan, who has served as Yakima County's prosecuting attorney since 1975.

Sullivan said the timing was questionable, but the attorneys said it wasn't politically motivated. They said they only learned about the slur Oct. 22 from a magazine article published Oct. 16, and it took until Thursday to organize a news conference.

Yvonne Kinoshita Ward of the Asian Bar Association said the news conference was not meant to endorse or oppose either Sullivan or his opponent, Clallam County District Judge Susan Owens.

"We're taking a risk here," Ward said. "I could find myself arguing before Justice Sullivan."

They decried Sullivan's use of the word and his defiance of a 1997 state Supreme Court ruling that temporarily banned police from checking for arrest warrants during traffic stops.

The attorneys said that by defying the Supreme Court ruling, Sullivan showed disrespect for the high court. The word, they said, remains offensive and unexplained by Sullivan.

"I also understand it was 12 years ago and he apologized to the people in the room," said attorney Norma Urena of the Hispanic Bar Association. "We are asking him to apologize to the people in the community."

Sullivan, who sits on state Supreme Court advisory committees on racial fairness and on the board of directors for the Yakima-based Hispanic Academic Achievers Program, said he was floored by the news conference.

"To draw inferences from a stupid remark I made 12 years ago is unfair," Sullivan said. "I want people to judge whether I'm a racist based on my behavior."

A 1999 study of Yakima County drug cases by the state Minorities in Justice Commission found no racial bias in Sullivan's office.

About defying the Supreme Court ruling, which struck down a state law allowing police to check drivers and passengers for arrest warrants during routine traffic stops, Sullivan said he's not sorry. Wording problems in the statute led to the court decision, he said.

Sullivan wasn't alone in his action. Several county prosecutors and Gov. Gary Locke told police agencies to ignore the court decision.

Three weeks after the ruling, lawmakers held a special session to redraft the law to meet the language requirements of the court.

"We had to keep checking for warrants in the interest of public safety," Sullivan said.

Critics want Sullivan to explain that decision.

Ward said allowing police to check warrants in defiance of the court could have promoted racial profiling, traffic stops based on skin color.

"Traffic stops and warrant checks have been a part of racial profiling," Ward said. "To have a Supreme Court decision and say we're not going to follow it - it became a picture that was disturbing."