Judge Charles Stafford

DIVISION I, POSITION 5

August 18, 1969–December 31, 1969

Appointed by Governor Evans; Resigned to accept appointment to Supreme Court

Justice Charles F. Stafford was appointed as one of the first 12 judges on the newly established state Court of Appeals by Gov. Daniel A. Evans. He served the court from August-December of 1969. In January of 1970, he was appointed to the Supreme Court, to fill the vacancy left from retired Justice Mathew W. Hill. He had served as pro-tempore justice under a 1962 constitutional amendment designed to help the high court with its over-loaded docket.

Prior to his career in Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court, Justice Stafford had been a superior court judge for Skagit County for 16 years, and served as a Skagit County prosecutor.

Justice Stafford was born in Burlington. He attended high school in Bellingham, graduating in 1936. He received his BA in 1940 from Whitman College, where he was also elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He began Yale Law School in 1940, but left in 1943 to serve as lieutenant in the U.S. Signal Corps during WWII. He subsequently returned back to school and graduated from Yale with his LLB in 1946.

Justice Stafford was involved in a number of community service and professional groups, such as the Boy Scouts, YMCA, American Judicature Society, and the Nation College of Trial Judges. He had been fighting a prolonged battle with cancer, he continued to serve on the Court until he died on July 3, 1984.