Grace Helen Whitener (born 1964/1965) is a Trinidadian-American attorney and

jurist A jurist is a person with expert knowledge of law; someone who analyses and comments on law. This person is usually a specialist legal scholar, mostly (but not always) with a formal qualification in law and often a legal practitioner. In the Uni ...

serving as an

associate justice Associate justice or associate judge (or simply associate) is a judicial panel member who is not the chief justice in some jurisdictions. The title "Associate Justice" is used for members of the Supreme Court of the United States and some state ...

of the

Washington Supreme Court The Washington Supreme Court is the highest court in the judiciary of the U.S. state of Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the ...

. Whitener was nominated by Governor

Jay Inslee Jay Robert Inslee (; born February 9, 1951) is an American politician, lawyer, and economist who has served as the 23rd governor of Washington since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a member of the U.S. House of Representat ...

on April 13, 2020, to fill the seat of retiring justice

Charles K. Wiggins Charles K. Wiggins (born September 7, 1947) is a former member of the Washington Supreme Court. He was elected to the court in 2010, defeating incumbent Richard B. Sanders. Biography Early life and education Wiggins grew up the son of a career w ...

Early life and education

Whitener was born and raised in

Trinidad Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. It is often referred to as the southernmos ...

. She moved to the United States when she was 16 to receive medical care. She earned a

Bachelor of Business Administration Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) is a bachelor's degree in business administration awarded by colleges and universities after completion of undergraduate study in the fundamentals of business administration and usually including advanced ...

degree in international marketing and trade from

Baruch College Baruch College (officially the Bernard M. Baruch College) is a public college in New York City. It is a constituent college of the City University of New York system. Named for financier and statesman Bernard M. Baruch, the college operates und ...

, followed by a

Juris Doctor The Juris Doctor (J.D. or JD), also known as Doctor of Jurisprudence (J.D., JD, D.Jur., or DJur), is a graduate-entry professional degree in law and one of several Doctor of Law degrees. The J.D. is the standard degree obtained to practice law ...

from the

Seattle University School of Law Seattle University School of Law, or Seattle Law School, or SU Law (formerly University of Puget Sound School of Law) is the law school affiliated with Seattle University, the Northwest's largest independent university. The School is accredite ...

Career

After graduating from law school, Whitener worked as a

public defender A public defender is a lawyer appointed to represent people who otherwise cannot reasonably afford to hire a lawyer to defend themselves in a trial. Several countries provide people with public defenders, including the UK, Hungary and Singapore, ...

, prosecutor, and private defense attorney. She served as a judge on the Board of Industrial Insurance Appeals for two years and then on the Pierce County Superior Court from 2015 to 2020, having been appointed by Governor Inslee and elected unopposed in 2015 and 2016. On April 13, 2020, she was appointed to the

by Governor

. She successfully ran for election in 2020 for the remaining two years of Wiggins's term, winning 66% of the vote.

Personal life

She is the first African-American, LGBTQ judge in Washington and second African-American member of the Washington Supreme Court after Charles Z. Smith. She is disabled. Whitener is co-chair of the Washington State Minority and Justice Commission. Whitner is married to Lynn Rainey, a fellow graduate of the

and an LGBTQ activist.

References

External links

Campaign biography
{{DEFAULTSORT:Whitener, Helen 1960s births Year of birth uncertain Living people 21st-century American judges 21st-century American women judges African-American judges African-American lawyers American women lawyers Baruch College alumni Justices of the Washington Supreme Court LGBT African Americans LGBT appointed officials in the United States Trinidad and Tobago LGBT people LGBT people from Washington (state) Seattle University School of Law alumni Superior court judges in the United States Washington (state) lawyers Washington (state) state court judges 21st-century African-American women 21st-century African-American people LGBT judges Public defenders American prosecutors

Early life and education

Career

Personal life

See also

References

External links