Guest Profile
Anne Bremner
Bremner was born in McAlester, Oklahoma.[1] Bremner attended Stanford University, where she studied medieval history, graduating in 1980 with honors.[2] She describes her student self as "a liberal, an idealist, and a Democrat" who was opposed to capital punishment.[3] She went on to Seattle University School of Law, where she completed her J.D. degree in 1982
From 1983 to 1988, Bremner was a deputy prosecuting attorney with the criminal division of the King County Prosecuting Attorney's Office, specializing in sex crimes.[2] During these years she came into contact with a number of high-profile cases, such as the Wah Mee massacre trials; this experience, along with those later in her career, began to modulate her views on the death penalty.[3] In 1985, she was deputy prosecuting attorney in a case against a University of Washington policeman believed to be the first person to be charged under the state's new computer trespass law; a trial court convicted the policeman of the charges, but the Washington Court of Appeals overturned his conviction.[4][5]
Bremner was a lawyer at Stafford Frey Cooper in Seattle from 1988 to 2012.[6][7] During her career in private practice, Bremner represented law enforcement and judges in various civil and criminal cases. In 1996, she successfully defended the Seattle Police Department's use of police dogs to find and bite suspects against an American Civil Liberties Union challenge claiming that it violated suspects' civil rights and constituted excessive force.[8] In 2001, she represented the Bellevue Police Department during the inquest into the conduct of officer Mike Hetle during his second fatal shooting that year; the jury found that Metle had reason to fear death or serious bodily harm.[9] In the 2002 case Vili Fualaau v. Highline School District and the Des Moines Police Department, filed by the family of Mary Kay Letourneau's student Vili Fualaau, Bremner successfully defended the police department against liability for damages.[10] She became acquainted with Letourneau during the course of the lawsuit, and the two remained friends afterwards.[11]
