Mary E. Roberts Admonished

Mary E. Roberts, a King County Superior Court judge in Washington, was admonished by the state Commission on Judicial Conduct for failing to issue timely rulings in two matters. A child custody case that concluded on July 1, 2022 didn't receive her ruling until January 17, 2023 — six and a half months later, though state law requires such rulings within 90 days. Her decision on a post-trial motion for fees and costs in the same case took 97 days, and her ruling on a related petition to modify custody took roughly six and a half months as well. This was not Roberts's first sanction for the same category of misconduct: the Commission had previously disciplined her in 2017 for delays including nine months to issue final orders in a dissolution case and ten months for a post-trial motion in that same case. An admonishment is the least severe disciplinary action the Commission can issue, but the repeat nature of the violation — the same kind of prolonged delay in family law rulings — reflects a sustained pattern rather than an isolated lapse.