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Monday, March 13, 2006

Courts - Seattle Judges keep many cases secret

The Seattle Times has a number of stories today about secrecy in the King County legal system. Here is one of them, headlined "Penchant for secrecy: One judge has sealed 12 cases from view." Some quotes:

The judge, speaking from the bench, told the baffled lawyer: "But for the unusual facts of this case, we wouldn't be doing this."

To the lawyer, Michael Killeen, the "this" was unheard of. Sharon Armstrong, a King County Superior Court judge, had sealed the entire case file in a lawsuit over a Metro bus accident. What's more, she had barred the public from her courtroom — in the middle of trial, after a newspaper reporter had stepped in to watch.

She was trying the case in private, deciding who was right and who was wrong, who would pay and how much — and all in a public courtroom, with a sign on the door saying "Closed."

Killeen didn't know it, but the sealing of files extended well beyond this case. A Seattle Times investigation has found hundreds of civil suits sealed improperly in King County since 1990 — lawsuits accusing doctors of negligence, lawyers of misconduct, public agencies of harmful mistakes. And no judge has sealed more cases than Armstrong. * * *

What makes this all so puzzling is Armstrong's overall reputation for excellence. Lawyers and judges describe her by stacking adjectives of praise. "I think Sharon Armstrong is a superb judge," said Presiding Judge Michael Trickey. "She is thoughtful, intelligent, dedicated." Judge William Downing said: "She is bright, talented, industrious, entirely committed to the rule of law and attentive to all her duties."

She is entrusted with complex civil cases and oversees all of the court's asbestos litigation. She handles a docket so large that she sometimes hears motions on weekends. And she has served as chief of both the civil and criminal divisions.

So what explains all those sealed cases? Armstrong declined comment, saying it would be inappropriate to talk about cases that The Times may be filing motions to open. But one answer may be: When Armstrong was sealing entire cases, she wasn't being challenged. The parties went along, and the public didn't know.

This story is part of a Seattle Times Special Report: Your Courts, Their Secrets.

One story the ILB found particularly interesting involves how the Seattle Times went about finding the sealed cases. As they write: "Imagine trying to find a needle in a haystack if you don't even know where the haystack is." Some quotes:

But no one in the court system could say how many cases involved sealed records. There was no system to determine which cases had been sealed, much less to assess whether they had been sealed appropriately.

Mayo, an expert in computer-assisted reporting, developed a method of searching court databases for indicators of sealed files. The state Administrative Office of the Courts helped run computer searches of electronic court dockets for civil lawsuits, not including other types of cases such as divorces, adoptions and probate.

"It was kind of a catchall, but the state courts were great. They were very cooperative," Mayo said.

Many hours of overnight computer runs produced 10,337 cases going back to 1990. Think of those as the haystack.

Next came looking for needles, which was tedious and meticulous work. Armstrong spent months probing computer records and shelved paper files at the King County Superior Court.

The clerk's office had sealed almost 300 cases by mistake, errors the office has since corrected. Beyond that, it was clear that judges in the county have improperly sealed court files, often not even indicating why.

Our investigation found 420 civil cases since 1990 that were sealed entirely. "I never anticipated finding hundreds of cases that had been sealed completely," Armstrong said. "To seal an entire case is really an extraordinary action."

"It was completely unexpected," added James Neff, Times investigations editor.

In addition to the 420 cases where the whole file was sealed, the reporters also discovered more than a thousand that were sealed in part.

After finding the sealed cases, Armstrong and Mayo pulled the judges' sealing orders to determine whether the cases had been sealed properly. Then, with the help of Steve Miletich, a third reporter assigned to the project, they researched hundreds of cases, starting with little more than the names of the parties involved.

No one questions that there are legitimate reasons to sometimes seal parts of a judicial record, but the standard should be high. The Washington Constitution says, "Justice in all cases shall be administered openly, and without unnecessary delay."

The Washington Supreme Court has said since the 1980s that records should be sealed rarely, and only when a compelling reason exists.

In Dreiling v. Jain, a 9-0 landmark decision in 2004, the Supreme Court reaffirmed that principle while ordering records opened in a civil case. Justice Tom Chambers wrote the opinion, saying: "The open operation of our courts is of utmost public importance. Justice must be conducted openly to foster the public's understanding and trust in our judicial system and to give judges the check of public scrutiny. Secrecy fosters mistrust."

Posted by Marcia Oddi on March 13, 2006 04:12 PM
Posted to Courts in general