New Seattle City Attorney Erika Evans plans big changes

Evans talks community court, drug diversion and Donald Trump in an interview with The Newsfeed’s Paris Jackson. Watch the full interview here.

New Seattle City Attorney Erika Evans is already making history as the first Black person to lead the office. In the course of an interview with The Newsfeed, she outlined ambitious goals, including reviving the city’s Community Court program, fighting back against federal overreach and addressing the city’s opioid and homelessness crises.

On her first day in office, Evans directed her criminal division to refer misdemeanor public drug use cases to her internal team of prosecutors, who will consider diversion instead of pressing charges. This decision attracted some criticism, but Evans maintains that sending low-level offenders struggling with addiction to jail doesn’t address the root cause of the problem. She also highlighted that her office retains the right to go the traditional prosecution route if people are not making meaningful progress in the diversion program.

Evans formerly worked for the Department of Justice’s civil rights division, and she says that the DOJ under President Trump is failing to hold federal officials and ICE agents accountable to the law. She believes there will be “a reckoning one day when we have a new Department of Justice that is acting in the interest of justice,” and says her office is ready to push back if a large federal immigration presence comes to Seattle. President Trump has repeatedly threatened to pull federal funding from Seattle and other cities over their sanctuary policies.

One of Evans’ first priorities is reestablishing Seattle’s community court program. Community court was a place for people accused of low-level crimes — things like sleeping outside or minor theft — to access social services without having to plead guilty to a crime. Former city attorney Ann Davison dissolved the program in 2023, ending the city’s third attempt in 12 years to establish a court like this.

In her campaign for city attorney, Evans was vocal about her intention to divert low-level drug offenses to the LEAD (Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion) program. Evans says her past experience as a federal and city prosecutor putting major drug traffickers on trial gives her valuable perspective; people who are struggling with addiction and consequently commit misdemeanors should not be treated the same as traffickers, she says. Evans says officers are already diverting 80% of these cases to LEAD, and her priority is ensuring that 20% gap is closed.