Through multiple hearings over nearly two months before two judges, attorneys have hashed out a single issue in the misdemeanor case against a former court clerk. But not one of those hearings has focused on the crime she’s accused of committing.
Instead, they continue to debate whether the court should unseal a single document in the case file — a debate a judge has now signaled will end by Friday.
The former clerk, Pamela Edwards, was arrested two months ago and charged over the release of a separate court document in 2023. The sealing of Edwards’ arrest warrant was first requested last month, not by the prosecution or the defense, but by an attorney representing the court system, her former employer of 27 years.
Judge Erin Guy Castillo said a ruling on the issue will finally be handed down Friday. The judge indicated the court system likely never had a right to make the request — what in legal jargon is known as standing — and doesn’t want to wait much longer in issuing a ruling.
“Standing is the crux of the entire case here,” Castillo said Tuesday morning while deliberating the potential sealing order for the second time that day. “And so that’s what it’s going to rise and fall on.”
The attorney for the court system previously asked the judge to seal the document because court surveillance footage and excerpts from a personnel investigation into Edwards’ conduct are supposedly included in the warrant’s affidavit.
Edwards was arrested Nov. 13 on suspicion of violating a court order by knowingly releasing a sealed document to a reporter. The document she 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.
Prosecution of the former clerk is a simple misdemeanor, but the case has already raised vexing legal conflicts.
The sheriff’s insistence that the release of the document to the media is being investigated as a conspiracy has triggered fundamental questions about the First Amendment rights of journalists covering legal proceedings.
The fight over the sealed arrest warrant has pitted the sheriff’s office against the court system. The court administration’s attempt to insert itself into the case is highly unusual, legal experts say, and has caused confusion even among the judges in the hearings.
That fight also raises questions about which documents the court system makes public – or withholds from the public. Court staff repeatedly denied Stocktonia’s requests to review the Edwards arrest warrant before hearings began last month. Now, two judges have said the document was public at the time.
The case against the clerk
Edwards’ first arraignment hearing was scheduled for Dec. 4. Less than 24 hours before the hearing, a lawyer representing the administrative side of the San Joaquin County Superior Court, where Edwards worked and which houses the courtroom where her case is being heard, filed an emergency motion asking the former clerk’s arrest warrant be sealed.
Sacramento-based attorney Erin M. Hamor, representing the superior court as a nonparty to the case, argued in the filing that the arrest warrant should be sealed because the affidavit contained confidential personnel records and court security footage, alleging such a disclosure could jeopardize court security.
The judge in the case, Erin Guy Castillo, agreed to temporarily seal the document pending further review of the court’s motion to be discussed at a second hearing scheduled for last week but the hearing was continued.
Then last week, a judge filling in for Castillo questioned why the court wanted the warrant sealed when it had already been a public document and whether the court’s attorney had a right to be involved in the case.
Hearings in the case have been continued four times overall to review and deliberate the issue. There have also been four separate filings about the issues since December — including the court’s original emergency motion — by Edwards’ attorney, David Wellenbrock, and Hamor.
The court system’s role in the court case
On Tuesday, the defense, prosecution and the court’s attorney spoke with Castillo at the bench for 30 minutes to discuss the court’s motion, particularly whether the court even had standing to file it. It was the second time that day attorneys appeared in court for the case.
A continuation arraignment hearing was scheduled earlier that morning, following last week’s hearing. Castillo initially met with Hamor, Wellenbrock and case prosecutor Kaylee De Ruyter outside the courtroom to once again discuss the court system’s motion to seal Edwards’ arrest warrant and the subsequent court filings.
Upon returning to the courtroom about 10 minutes later, Castillo explained that case precedent indicates the superior court likely doesn’t have the standing to make that request.
Her reasoning primarily leaned on the opinion in the 1991 court case Dix v. the Superior Court of Humboldt County, which states: “Neither a crime victim nor any other member of the public has general standing to intervene in an ongoing criminal proceeding against another person.”
However, she agreed to adjourn and then reconvene an hour later to hear arguments on the court’s standing, where the bench conference often became loud and, at moments, appeared to be heated. Attorneys are typically asked to approach the bench for private, off-the-record conversations with the judge.
Castillo ultimately agreed to give Hamor one more chance to plead her case on Friday, requiring Hamor to file her reasoning by 5 p.m. on Wednesday. She noted that the sealing order can’t even be considered until standing had been determined.
The current sealing order for the arrest warrant will also be left in place until Friday’s hearing, Castillo ruled.
Wellenbrock voiced his objections.
“I think the court should rule right now,” he said. “I don’t think the order is valid.”
Judge Castillo also overruled the prosecution’s request to set a trial date, citing other issues in the case that have yet to be hammered out.
The next hearing — the fifth in Edwards’ case — is scheduled for Friday at 8:30 a.m.