by Paul Wright
On August 20, 2024, the free speech rights of all Americans suffered a devastating loss. Bruce Johnson, 74, was a long-time partner at the Seattle law firm of Davis Wright Tremaine. He spent his entire, nearly half century career as a lawyer there. Over the course of his career Bruce became one of the preeminent specialists and defenders of the First Amendment and the free speech rights of publishers and media around the country. He was widely recognized as the nation’s most knowledgeable lawyer when it came to commercial speech and anti SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation) laws. More on that later.
Bruce represented media clients across the country and they included the biggest print and broadcasting companies, including 60 Minutes, the Seattle Times, Boston Globe, New York Times and many, many others. Those were the big ones and with his passing the cases he litigated on behalf of those clients will likely be the ones that he is remembered by.
One of Bruce’s smaller pro bono media clients, for almost 30 years, was Prison Legal News which later became the Human Rights Defense Center. Prisoners and the publishers who seek to communicate with them and anyone who values transparency in the criminal justice system owes Bruce a huge debt of gratitude.
In 1996 I read an article about Bruce’s First Amendment work on behalf of media organizations noting he was already considered one of the best First Amendment lawyers in the country. The Washington DOC had denied a public record request I had filed seeking information about the state’s prison industries program. I wrote Bruce from my prison cell and asked if he would represent PLN in a public records lawsuit to seek these records. He sent me a brief note saying he would be glad to and soon enough a young attorney named David Bowman showed up at the prison I was at saying he would be handling the case. He did, we won, got the records and published the story. My next public records request involved water and safety records at McNeil Island where I was imprisoned at the time and wondering why the tap water we were drinking was brown and why the DOC was refusing to provide the records. The DOC denied my records request. I wrote Bruce for help. He sent a young lawyer named Shelly Hall to help and we filed suit, got the records and published a story.
The third time I asked Bruce for help was when the Washington DOC refused to provide the records of prison doctors it had disciplined for killing or maiming the prisoners in its care. That was in 2000 and eventually that case went to the state supreme court where we won 6-3 that the records needed to be disclosed. In addition to the records the Washington DOC was also ordered to pay $550,000 in fees and penalties for withholding the documents. At the time it was the largest public records award in Washington history.
For many years I only communicated with Bruce by letter when I was in prison. Then for a while once I was out of prison by e mail and phone. It took several years for us to connect in person. I was thinking he was like Charlie in Charlies’ Angels: just a voice on the phone or letters in the mail.
Over the years Bruce helped HRDC with many censorship and free speech cases besides the public records cases. And this expanded to include the entire country. We successfully sued prisons and jails in New Mexico, Arkansas, Kentucky and many other places thanks to the help from Bruce and Davis Wright Tremaine. Each case we won expanded the rights of prisoners and publishers alike.
Any time we had a problem in a state where we needed counsel and I did not know anyone I could simply email Bruce and ask him if he knew anyone there. He always responded with an introduction to his “good friend”, all of whom turned out to actually be his really good friends and really good lawyers as well.
As I got to know Bruce over the years I was always impressed by his vast knowledge of the law and his skills as a negotiator and litigator. In addition to being a great lawyer, Bruce was also a wonderful, witty person and a really nice guy. Originally from Ohio, Bruce was a pragmatic Midwesterner. One thing I learned from him when doing settlement meetings and mediations was always stay as close as possible to where you needed to be at the next day and plan on spending the night because you don’t really know how long it is going to last.
For readers who appreciate the advocacy and investigation that HRDC has undertaken over the years on behalf of prisoners and their families, Bruce is one of the reasons we have been able to do so. For around 20 years now HRDC has advocated before various federal regulatory agencies on behalf of criminal justice impacted populations being victimized by assorted government and corporate players. Twice now, Viapath, FKA Global Tel Link, has seen fit to send me cease and desist letters complaining about letters I submitted on HRDC’s behalf to the Federal Communications Commission noting the company exploits prisoners and their families and relevant to the discussion, also employs criminal bribery to secure monopoly contracts. Both times Bruce immediately responded and noted that I/HRDC have a constitutional right to petition the government for the redress of grievances and those statements are fully immunized. And besides, they were all true. We have not heard from GTL in a while now.
In 2022 Centurion Health, one of the biggest private equity owned prison health care providers, filed a SLAPP lawsuit against HRDC seeking declaratory relief to prevent us from filing requests for public records related to how they treat and kill the Florida prisoners in their care. This was the first SLAPP suit HRDC had ever been hit with. But I knew who to call. Within minutes of being served with the complaint I emailed it to Bruce and asked him if he could help. Within the hour a team of lawyers from Davis Wright Tremaine was preparing our defense. Which was not what Centurion, then owned by Centene, the 26th biggest corporation in America, expected was going to happen.
As a friend, colleague and client I will miss Bruce a lot. The First Amendment and free speech has lost a great defender and I think everyone in America, especially those of us with something unpopular to say, or who want to hear unpopular news or ideas or who just want to know what the government is doing, has suffered a loss. Everyone at HRDC sends Bruce’s family and colleagues our deepest condolences. This issue of Prison Legal News is dedicated to Bruce’s memory.