VOTERS WILL BE THE JUDGE OF WHO'D BE THE BETTER JUDGE LAWMAKER WHO

Disillusioned with the Legislature, which he dubs "a mean-spirited place," Dennis Dellwo convinced himself the time had come to try a more dignified line of work.

So he asked the governor to make him a judge.

"I've always thought of the bench as a place to end up," Dellwo says.

An appointment to Spokane County Superior Court seemed as inevitable as rain. Dellwo is a loyal Democrat in his 13th year as a state representative, and Gov. Mike Lowry is a political soul mate.

But this year, two judicial openings came and went. Each time, Dellwo found himself a robeless runner-up.

Now he's turning to voters.

On Nov. 7, they will decide whether to retain the most recent appointee, Neal Q. Rielly, or dump him for a better known lawyer-politician.

The candidates are vying to replace Judge Harold Clarke, who recently retired.

Rielly was on the job a few days when he learned he was in for the fight of his career. But he was prepared for the challenge, having already shored up local bar support, printed green-and-white campaign signs and launched a fund-raising committee.

Confident he'd get the Sept. 20 appointment, Dellwo wasn't prepared at all - essentially conceding a head start to his rival in a furious, six-week campaign.

That's a big disadvantage, considering the tremendous support Rielly, 51, has mustered from the local bar.

Little known outside legal circles, Rielly is a former divorce lawyer who spent the last six years as a Superior Court commissioner, presiding over a gritty mix of warring couples, juvenile delinquents and the mentally ill.

Dellwo, 50, is a partner in Winston & Cashatt, a downtown law firm, but he expects to eat Rielly's dust in the Spokane County Bar Association candidate ratings due out Oct. 30.

The chief reason: Rielly wields a gavel, while Dellwo has rarely appeared in court since joining the Legislature.

Rielly is capitalizing on that fact, telling voters he is battle-tested on the bench - a known quantity - unlike his opponent.

"You just don't become a judge overnight," he says. "I've got the tools now - I don't need any training."

Dellwo says he doesn't need training, either. Asked what challenges he would face if elected judge, he answered, "I can't think of any."

Scaled-back practice or not, Dellwo claims the edge on his opponent in legal experience, with 24 years compared to Rielly's 19. Dellwo views his years in Olympia as an asset because he knows the spirit and purpose behind hundreds of state laws.

The candidate also claims to be more in touch with the average citizen, because he represents Spokane's 3rd District and is heavily involved in community groups.

Counters Rielly: "A judge cannot be driven by community moods. A judge has to uphold the law. You don't take sides for the community. You take the law and interpret the facts and apply them to it."

One of the biggest knocks on Dellwo is that he's too partisan to make the transition to impartial jurist. "Denny might get in there and make a political call," says a lawyer in Dellwo's firm.

Dellwo counters by citing examples of other longtime legislators who have become "very excellent judges."

Both candidates are paying the requisite amount of lip service to being tough on crime, although both are personally opposed to capital punishment and favor treatment for first-time drug offenders.

Tagged a liberal, Dellwo insists he is a moderate on law-and-order issues. As a lawmaker, he supported "Three Strikes, You're Out" and tougher penalties for drunken driving, sexual assault and residential burglary.

"It's a false issue, a red herring," he says. "I am not soft on crime. I'm a strong believer in personal rights, like freedom of speech, but I'm also a strong believer in public safety."

While his judicial career has been devoid of high-profile cases, and therefore invisible to the general public, Rielly vows to hammer violent criminals and anyone who abuses children, the elderly or the disabled.

"If you're going to prey on innocent people or you're going to use violence, I'm going to consider the strongest possible sentence under the law," he says.

The candidates have more in common than they would care to admit. Months apart in age, they are both fiercely competitive, hard-working and ambitious. Both grew up in large Irish-Catholic families. As young men, Rielly worked as an iron worker; Dellwo as a steel worker.

Their roots, however, are worlds apart.

Dellwo was born into a family of some prominence. His father is an attorney and former chairman of Spokane County's Democratic Party. His grandfather was a lawyer and successful politician, who served as the House speaker in Montana and narrowly lost a bid for Congress.

Rielly grew up poor - in subsidized housing in Everett, which he calls "the projects."

His iron-working father died of lung cancer when Rielly was 5. His mother was a housewife with an eighth-grade education and seven kids to raise.

"It was just a tough existence," he recalls. "At the time, I felt cheated. Now I feel blessed by God."

Rielly figured his rise from poverty could only have been scripted by some higher power. Working as a laborer, he put himself through Gonzaga University and then its law school, graduating in 1976.

He became a partner in a three-lawyer "momand-pop outfit," where he did some criminal-defense work before focusing on civil matters. While he assisted on some big-money personal-injury cases, Rielly is best known as a divorce lawyer. It's the chief reason why, in 1986, Superior Court judges picked him out of more than 50 applicants to fill a court commissioner seat.

One of eight kids, Dellwo grew up in a sports-crazy, competitive family. He idolized John F. Kennedy as a teenager and resolved to devote his life to public service.

The route he chose was the legal profession. After graduating from Arizona State University's law school in 1971, Dellwo spent two years practicing law on an Indian reservation north of Spokane. He was the lone public defender and legal aid lawyer for Colville Confederated Tribes.

One of his first cases was defending a man accused of murder. Dellwo was so certain of the man's innocence he convinced a judge to let him out of jail. The man's new pre-trial address: Dellwo's house. The murder charge wound up being reduced to manslaughter in a plea bargain that emphasized alcohol treatment.

Dellwo left the reservation to join his father's downtown Spokane law firm, where he was assigned criminal defense and divorce cases.

In his first stab at politics, in 1980, Dellwo lost in the Valley's 4th District to Mike Padden, now a Spokane County District Court judge.

Two years later, after spending a year as a Democratic caucus attorney in the House, he took aim at the traditionally Democratic 3rd District and its one-term incumbent, Republican Margaret Leonard. He won a squeaker and has never looked back. He's been re-elected six times, all by huge margins.

Today, Dellwo is best known for his three-year, bittersweet struggle championing Washington health-care reform, a fight that put him in the national spotlight.

Copyright 1995 Cowles Publishing Company
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