---
title: "Bree Black Horse | KnowJudges"
canonical: "https://knowjudges.com/kyj/judge/bree-black-horse-wa"
page_type: "judge_profile"
updated: "2026-10-07"
---

# Bree Black Horse

Yakima County - Superior Court · Judge

## Profile

- Court: Yakima County - Superior Court
- State: Washington
- Role: Judge
- Service status: active

## Summary

Bree Black Horse — Yakima County - Superior Court

## Sources

- [Judicial Appointments To Date](https://governor.wa.gov/official-actions/judicial-appointments/judicial-appointments-date)

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## Biography

### Professional career

- Counsel at Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP
- Intern with the Office of Tribal Justice at the DOJ in Washington, D.C., and clerk for U.S. District Judge Brian M. Morris in the District of Montana
- The third judge in Washington to serve on a superior court bench and the first Native American in Yakima County’s history
- director and adjunct professor of law for Seattle University School of Law’s Central Washington Hybrid Hub, leading the Pipeline Initiative to expand legal education access in Central Washington

### Education

- Seattle University School of Law — J.D.

### Additional information

- Governor Bob Ferguson appointed Bree Black Horse to the Yakima County Superior Court on September 9, 2026, filling a newly created judgeship — the first added to the county since 1998 — in response to growing community demand for judicial services.
- Legal aid attorney and public defender for the Yakama Indian Nation.
- focusing on Native American affairs and litigation.
- Black Horse is a career litigator with over 12 years of experience in criminal and civil cases at federal, state, and Tribal levels.
- Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, where she became the first regional prosecutor in the Northwest dedicated to Missing or Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) cases.
- She has prosecuted high-profile cases, including a defendant who shot at law enforcement (seeking a 198‐month federal sentence) and a murderer of a Yakama Nation woman for which she sought 25 years in federal prison.
- Bree Black Horse is an enrolled member of the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma and the first Native American judge appointed to the Yakima County Superior Court bench in Washington.



## Published courtroom rules

### Shared court rules

- [Washington GR 16, Courtroom Photography and Recording by the News Media](https://knowjudges.com/courtroom-rules/national-shared-set-7133c6bd26c80972b86e0d31) — Scope is limited to the court class in the source claim.  Shared court context only; case-type restrictions, exceptions, later amendments and case orders apply. This is not a personal preference or a complete rules inventory. [Official source](https://www.courts.wa.gov/court_rules/pdf/GR/GA_GR_16_00_00.pdf). Collected 2026-07-26.