YAKIMA, Wash. -- Justice Richard B. Sanders is not the kind to turn the other cheek.

As the Washington State Supreme Court's resident maverick since 1995, Sanders is facing one of his stiffest challenges for re-election in the form of Bainbridge Island attorney Charlie Wiggins.

Judicial races are usually staid affairs, but Wiggins has raised the ante with attacks on Sanders that question the justice's voting record and ethics.

Now Sanders is hitting back. On the campaign trail Wednesday, he stopped by the Yakima Herald-Republic to defend his libertarian philosophy and to give his take on why Wiggins can claim to enjoy widespread support from prosecutors around the state.

"They think, rightly so, that he's going to give them a better time than I do," he said.

Since he unseated an appointee to the court 15 years ago, Sanders has carved out a reputation as a civil libertarian in the mold of legendary U.S. Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas.

After winning a special election in 1995, he was elected to a full six-year term in 1998 and re-elected in 2004. At 65, he is 10 years away from the mandatory retirement age that is about to sideline Justice Gerry Alexander.

Noting that Douglas was a native of Yakima, Sanders said he remains committed to a free society as envisioned by the Founding Fathers "where government stays out of the way and everybody gets theirs...

"If we can do that," he said, "this would be a great place to live."

The son of a Boeing engineer, Sanders is an Eagle Scout who grew up in Tacoma and suburban Seattle and is an alumnus of the University of Washington, where he got both his undergraduate degree (political science) and his law degree.

Sanders is proud of his prolific output on the Supreme Court, where he has penned 570 opinions, often in dissent. Summaries of all his opinions have been published on his website at www.justicesanders.com.

A staunch defender of property rights, Sanders takes exception to Wiggins' insinuation that he's in the back pocket of the development community because of strong campaign support from the Building Industry Association of Washington.

"They support me because they believe in me," said Sanders, "not the other way around."

He also takes exception to Wiggins' insinuation that he's soft on crime or on unethical lawyers, accusing Wiggins of distorting his record in interviews with the news media.

For example, Wiggins has said Sanders votes more than 90 percent of the time in split decisions for lesser sanctions in lawyer discipline cases. The key, said Sanders, is the term "split decisions."

"Most of these types of cases are unanimous," he said, citing paperwork suggesting he voted for lesser discipline than the majority only once in eight non-unanimous cases last year.

As for his ethics, Sanders remains defiant about his high-profile dispute with the state Bar Association over his 2005 tour of the state's sex-predator center at McNeil Island.

The Washington State Commission on Judicial Conduct in 2005 admonished Sanders for the tour, where he met with some residents who had cases pending before the court. The discipline -- the mildest sanction available -- was narrowly upheld by a special appeals panel sitting in for the Supreme Court on the grounds that Sanders' visit created an "appearance of partiality."

Sanders still feels like he did nothing wrong but doesn't want to dwell on the dispute for fear of casting a negative pall over his re-election campaign.

Instead, he encourages voters to visit his website and read his opinions for themselves.

"I make a unique contribution to the Supreme Court because I'm willing to stand up for the individual," he said. "No one else (on the court) looks at the world the way I do."

* Chris Bristol can be reached at 509-577-7748 or cbristol@yakimaherald.com.