Former WA Supreme Court Justice Mary Fairhurst dies at 64

OLYMPIA (AP) — Former Washington Supreme Court Chief Justice Mary Fairhurst, who had been fighting cancer, has died. She was 64. In a statement Washington Courts said Fairhurst died Tuesday surrounded by her family in Olympia. In January 2020 she retired due to health reasons. She was first elected to the court in 2002, and was elected chief justice by her colleagues in 2016. In 2018, when the high court unanimously struck down the state’s death penalty as arbitrary and racially biased, Fairhurst wrote the lead opinion. Fairhurst was a magna cum laude graduate of Gonzaga Law School and the youngest president of the Washington State Bar Association.