In my feature this week on Washington State Supreme Court Justice Richard B. Sanders, I look at some of the justice's early writings, which appeared in a column that ran in the University of Washington Daily:

On April 10, 1968, six days after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the young Richard Sanders wrote that the death of the civil rights hero and Nobel Peace Prize winner "looks like suicide to me." He continued:

"He that sows the wind," the Bible says, "shall reap the whirlwind." Dr. King sowed that wind every time he disobeyed a law and said he was right in doing it. Sure, he spent some time in jail, but the moral victory was always his. He set himself above the law and encouraged others to do the same. They did.

Justice Sanders still stands by much of that column today, though he says he wouldn't write it the same way now. In our interview, summarizing how he once felt about Dr. King, Justice Sanders said: "I was not a fan."

In the comments attached to my story, Basehead asks:

How is that someone who doesn't like MLK is a bad guy? Most of the Civil Rights movement ended up creating the mess we're in today. The Communist welfare state that brought us large scale unchecked 3rd world immigration can be traced back to much to that time. I like Malcom X, even if I dont like his politics, he was a realist. King was an egalitarian dope.

If you care to answer, the thread is HERE.

And if you want to see the entire column that Justice Sanders wrote on April 10, 1968, come to Slog tomorrow morning—when we'll be adding to what I reported in my piece by letting you read the entire source document.