The Legal Foundation of Washington gave its highest honor, the 2014 Charles A. Goldmark Distinguished Service Award, to the Washington State Task Force on Race and the Criminal Justice System last month for the wonderful work it has done in the past few years.

The task force was formed in 2010 after two state Supreme Court justices said during a public meeting that the state had no racial disparity within its legal justice system. The justices’ statements shocked the people attending that meeting and our legal community. A task force was created to investigate and report a need for reform within the state and national criminal justice systems.