Pooja Vaddadi

Pooja Vaddadi is an American lawyer who has served as a judge in the Seattle Municipal Court since January 2023. She was a public defender before she was elected judge.

Biography Before her judge election, Vaddadi was a private defense attorney and worked as a public defender for the King County Department of Public Defense. She was an adjunct professor at Seattle University.

Seattle Municipal Court Election Vaddadi ran for a position on the Seattle Municipal Court in 2022 against incumbent Adam Eisenberg. Vaddadi said almost all the "miscarriages of justice" at the court were caused by judicial error and that she would be competent and impartial to "rehabilitate the reputation of the court."

Tenure In February 2024, Vaddadi ruled that a Seattle city prosecutor was disqualified from a specific case due to a conflict in witness statements but denied a motion disqualifying the Seattle City Attorney office from the case. In response to the ruling, the City Attorney's office sent a memo disqualifying Vaddadi from hearing new criminal cases, accusing her of bias against the prosecution and mishandling cases. Vaddadi responded to the memo stating that "all my decisions have been made within the confines of the law" and "I have to follow the court rules."

After the City Attorney disqualified Vaddadi, the Municipal Court reassigned her to traffic cases, which magistrates primarily hear. Vaddadi said, "I really just want to help the best way that I can here. I would love to sit in my own courtroom to do the criminal cases that I've been elected to do." In the letter, the ACLU stated that Davidson disqualifying Vaddadi "is undermining the democratic will of Seattle voters." At a court hearing the same day, however, a member of the city prosecutor's office indicated they were no longer seeking to remove Vaddadi from all criminal cases.