A judge questioned why the San Joaquin County Superior Court had motioned to seal an arrest warrant for one of its former employees when the document had already been public for several days before court proceedings began.
The court’s attorney argued that, though the warrant had been public, it was important to keep the document sealed going forward. A judge agreed to temporarily seal the warrant last month pending further review in response to an emergency motion filed by the court’s attorney.
The issue is that court clerks denied multiple requests to access the document before the sealing, saying it was under review.
In November, former records clerk Pamela Edwards was arrested on suspicion of violating a court order by knowingly releasing a sealed document. The document Edwards is alleged to have illegally released was a search warrant from the high-profile fraud case against AngelAnn Flores, a Stockton Unified School District trustee.
At a hearing Wednesday, presiding Judge W. Stephen Scott expressed confusion about why the court was involved in the case — a criminal trial essentially pits the District Attorney’s Office against the defendant.
Scott asked why the court had an interest in keeping the warrant sealed, since it may already have been accessed by members of the public before the document was temporarily sealed in December. California law generally considers court documents, including warrants, to be public records unless sealed by a judge.
In court documents, Edwards’ defense attorney David Wellenbrock also noted the warrant had not been filed under seal and cannot be sealed by stipulation.
But the court, in practice, did not make the document available for public viewing.
Media repeatedly requested warrant
Edwards was taken into custody Nov. 13 and scheduled to be arraigned Dec. 4. At the time, there was no sealing order keeping the arrest warrant private.
Under state public records law, Stocktonia attempted to view Edwards’ arrest warrant and its corresponding affidavit. Those records would show the evidence investigators offered that justified her arrest.
Stocktonia requested the document multiple times during the three weeks between the clerk’s arrest and her scheduled arraignment hearing.
At first, clerks told Stocktonia that the warrant was not available because it was under review by a supervisor but someone would call once the document was ready. That call never came.
Eventually, a Stocktonia reporter was directed to a clerk supervisor who reiterated that the warrant was still under review and could not be released.
A Stocktonia reporter also went to the court’s records room at least twice during this time to search for the warrant in the court’s computer system and ask records room staff about its release, to no avail.
Stocktonia’s last attempt to access the warrant was the same week Edwards was scheduled to be arraigned.
Then, less than 24 hours before the hearing, Sacramento-based attorney Erin M. Hamor, representing the superior court as a nonparty to the case, filed an emergency motion asking Edwards’ arrest warrant be sealed because the affidavit contained confidential personnel records and court security footage, alleging such a disclosure could jeopardize court security.
The presiding judge for Edwards’ December hearing, Erin Guy Castillo, agreed to temporarily seal the clerk’s arrest warrant until the next arraignment hearing, which was scheduled for Wednesday morning. The last-minute action angered the county sheriff, who blasted the court and accused it of not cooperating with his department’s investigation.
After Wednesday’s hearing, the court did not respond to Stocktonia’s request for comments on why the court clerks appear to have denied access to the arrest warrant, a public document, before it was temporarily sealed.
‘Unusual and bizarre’ situation
David Loy, executive legal director for the First Amendment Coalition, described the fact that court clerks had not released the arrest warrant as baffling — and, likely, a problem.
According to California Rules for Court: “A record must not be filed under seal without a court order. The court must not permit a record to be filed under seal based solely on the agreement or stipulation of the parties.”
Clerks do not have review power over court documents, Loy said, or withhold public documents from view without a court order, though there is some precedent surrounding reasonable processing times to get documents stamped, processed and put in the court file.
“But as a general matter clerks don’t have the power to sit on ostensibly public judicial records for three weeks,” Loy said, noting that clerk’s have “clerical authority, not substantive judicial authority.”
Barring special cases, such as in juvenile court, Loy says case documents are considered presumptively open to the public once they’re filed unless a judge says otherwise. He described Edward’s case as “a garden-variety criminal prosecution.” And, in typical adult criminal cases, Loy says a clerk’s function in handling court documents is “to process the documents, put them in the file, and maintain the integrity of the file.”
“It’s not a clerk’s function to review documents for substance and make decisions about what to do with them,” Loy said. “But judges decide cases. Judges decide whether to seal it or not.”
Clerks don’t even typically have the authority to partially seal court documents, including redactions, without a court order, he said, describing the superior court’s actions when it comes to Edwards’ arrest warrant as “unusual and bizarre.”
Judge Scott also voiced his confusion at Wednesday’s hearing regarding the superior court’s role in the case and why it was requesting documents be sealed after they should’ve already been accessible for public viewing and, thus, could have already been accessed.
“Do you have a standing in this case?” Scott asked Hamor at the beginning of the hearing. He also turned to the defense and directly asked Edwards’ attorney David Wellenbrock: “Does she have standing to come in here and do this?”
The attorney for the court argued that she did indeed have standing – meaning the court can be involved in the case — saying again that the arrest warrant affidavit contained confidential court personnel records and court security footage. The court’s December motion says releasing that material could jeopardize court security.
After the hearing, Wellenbrock told reporters the court does have standing when it comes to the contents of the arrest warrant, but not in the proceedings for the rest of the criminal case.
Wellenbrock filed a reply to the court’s motion last week that said his client objected to sealing her arrest warrant because the defense had not been able to review the document and the court’s application to seal it was insufficient.
Hamor’s supporting declaration asking for the sealing order “fails to identify the person or persons who furnished the information relayed and contains several conclusory statements which are not supported by specific facts,” Wellenbrock said in the response, which is required by both state and federal law. The court also doesn’t explicitly describe how and why releasing court security footage would cause a security risk, he says.
Edwards may eventually choose not to oppose the motion, at least in part, if the court amends or provides supplemental information to its original application that sufficiently addresses the defense’s concerns, Wellenbrock said.
Moments before Wednesday’s hearing, Hamor provided the judge and Wellenbrock with another new filing, a supplemental declaration from court CEO Stephanie Bohrer that she said should make the court’s motion more amenable to the defense. The document was not yet publicly available as of Wednesday afternoon.
The judge asked why the supplemental declaration had not been filed with the court in advance of this week’s hearing. He also described the situation as confusing, noting Edwards’ arrest warrant could already be out in the public sphere as it had likely been a public document for several days before the court motioned for it to be sealed.
Hamor acknowledged to the judge that the warrant had been considered a public record for a short time following Edwards’ arrest. However, she explained that once the court found out what was in the warrant application a motion was filed to seal it.
The next hearing was set for next Tuesday at 8:30 a.m. so Bohrer‘s supplemental declaration could be reviewed. Wellenbrock was also given the opportunity to review the arrest warrant at the courthouse immediately following Wednesday’s hearing.