Why should you vote for Jeffrey Bassett? Experience, the incumbent explains.

Why should you vote for Dale Magneson? The challenger gives the same answer.

Bassett has been an attorney since 1986 — that’s 31 years by his count. His challenger for the Kitsap County Superior Court race has 28.

But the three-year leg-up is unimportant. The point is the breadth of experience, Bassett claims.

“Magneson’s experience is limited to family law and bankruptcy, mainly,” he said. “I have family law and bankruptcy; I also have dependency law, criminal law, appellate law, personal injury, labor and industries, juvenile offender cases and jury trial experience.”

Bassett, who earned his law degree from Florida State University in 1985, began his career in Washington in 1990 as a managing attorney of a Renton firm specializing in bankruptcy and personal injury work. In 2000, he returned to Florida,where he prosecuted child abuse and neglect cases for eight years before moving to East Bremerton, where he worked in private practice, mostly handling child dependency matters, until Gov. Jay Inslee appointed him to the bench in February. He beat out nine other attorneys for the position formerly held by Judge Jay Roof. The “top three” of those competitors, Bassett said, endorsed him in this election, extending a list already swollen with the names of 47 lawyers.

He’s also won the unanimous support of his peer group on the bench. Bassett says he’s backed by “every single judge in the county, not because there’s any fear of being attacked by somebody else trying to get on the bench, but because they’ve seen me in practice.”

He says he’s a good judge because he makes hard decisions, does his homework and really listens.

“That’s what I learned in public defense counsel,” Bassett explained. “I didn’t always agree with [my clients], but I told them I understood where they were coming from. It’s the same thing with a judge; they need to know you might not decide the case the way they want, but they need to know you listened.”

Dale Magneson, Bassett’s opponent for the Superior Court seat, does not understand where the judge is coming from.

“I think he’s exaggerated his experience,” he said. “If he’s done one thing chiefly, he’s been doing dependencies in juvenile court for the last eight years. So where does he claim all this experience with dissolutions of marriage, legal separations,probate, landlord-tenant and all these other things?”

The fact that 40 percent of Bassett’s experience was based in Florida also bothered Magneson.

“What he did in Florida probably doesn’t translate all that well into Washington,” he asserted. “That’s why I can’t practice inFlorida.”

Magneson, who received his law degree from Brigham Young University, is a Kitsap County native. After his military service,he worked the graveyard shift at the Bremerton shipyard for six years while attending classes at the University ofWashington, where he majored in German. He’s operated his Silverdale law office for 28 years.

Besides experience, Magneson says his intimacy with the area is his greatest asset.

“If I take the bench, I’ll be the only native of Kitsap County to be on the Kitsap County Superior Court,” he said. “I know the people here; I’ve grown up here; I understand the military; I understand the shipyard; this is my home.”

Magneson lacks experience in criminal law — which represented 47 percent of the courthouse’s load from January to June,according to Bassett — but he argues that won’t be a handicap.

“Criminal law is not nearly as complex as things like domestic relations and dissolutions of marriage,” Magneson said. “In criminal law, you have the elements of the crime, each of which must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, and that is the burden of the state. Whereas, in domestic relations, you have all kinds of issues coming at you; children, inheritances,community and separate property, debt, real estate; there are a lot more moving parts.”

He only has one attorney endorsement to Bassett’s four dozen, but he says there’s a good explanation for the scarcity: “A lot of attorneys will endorse him because they’re timid. You know why the other judges have endorsed him? It’s very simple. They’re sending a clear message to attorneys in this county that we don’t want you to run for these positions to which we’ve been appointed.

“It’s a gutsy thing that I have done here,” Magneson added.