A temporary order sealing the arrest warrant for a former San Joaquin County court clerk was lifted Friday following deliberations that lasted nearly two months after a judge ruled that the document shouldn’t have ever been sealed in the first place.
A lawyer representing the San Joaquin County Superior court where the case is being tried filed an emergency motion last month to seal the arrest warrant of its former employee, in a move that legal experts have described as highly unusual and has confused judges presiding over the case.
Attorneys have hashed out the issue over five hearings since early December. At the center of these deliberations hasn’t been the potential sealing order itself but whether the court had any right to make the request — what in legal jargon is known as having standing.
Judge Erin Guy Castillo ruled Friday that it doesn’t.
In November, former records clerk Pamela Edwards was arrested on suspicion of violating a court order by knowingly releasing a sealed document in 2023. That document was a search warrant from the high-profile fraud case against AngelAnn Flores, a Stockton Unified School District trustee.
The criminal case against Edwards soon became focused on a different document, the arrest warrant that deputies used to take the ex-clerk into custody. Castillo ordered Edwards’ arrest warrant temporarily sealed at her first arraignment hearing Dec. 4 until the court’s motion could be reviewed. The court’s attorney, Erin Hamor, argued that the warrants affidavit included confidential court personnel records and security footage, the release of which could jeopardize court security.
The judge has since acknowledged issuing the temporary sealing order was a mistake.
California court rules and previous court case precedent, cited by Castillo at Friday’s final hearing on the issue, doesn’t allow for a nonparty to a case — someone other than the defense or prosecution — to request a document be sealed and prohibits their intervention in criminal proceedings.
“I do believe (the sealing) was done in error,” Castillo said.
Prosecution of Edwards is a simple misdemeanor, but the sealing of her arrest warrant is just one of several legal conflicts the case already has raised.
In prosecuting the former clerk over the release of the Flores search warrant, the sheriff has insisted the release of that document to the media is being investigated as a conspiracy. That has triggered fundamental questions about the First Amendment rights of journalists covering legal proceedings.
Stocktonia received a copy of Edwards’ arrest warrant following Friday’s hearing. The document, which lays out the sheriff office’s case against the former clerk, lists two Stockton Record reporters who allegedly received a copy of and published information contained in the sealed search warrant in the Flores case as witnesses. One of the reporters is also identified as a subject of the investigation.
Sheriff’s officials confirmed to Stocktonia Saturday morning that a reporter “remains a person of interest until this matter is fully adjudicated.”
Questions have also been raised 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, though two judges and attorneys involved in the case, including Hamor, have since acknowledged the document was considered a public record at the time.
Most notably, this case has also pitted the sheriff’s office against the court system.
SJ County Sheriff Patrick Withrow blasted the court in December following the temporary sealing order and accused it of not cooperating with his department’s investigation. He said the document was public and never in his entire law enforcement career had he seen a situation like this.
The sheriff’s office told Stocktonia following Friday’s hearing that the department agrees with Castillo’s ruling and the reasoning behind it.
“We have never seen or heard of a Court intervening on a criminal matter,” sheriff’s officials said in a statement to Stocktonia. “The Court’s (and its) Counsel’s actions interfered with the public & media’s right to access public documents.”
The superior court did not immediately reply to Stocktonia’s request for comment Friday afternoon regarding Castillo’s ruling on the court’s standing and motion to seal.
In her ruling, Castillo highlighted the California Rules of Court describing the procedures for filing records under seal, which explain how a “party” to the case — either the prosecution or the defense — can request a document be sealed. Guidelines for members of the public to be involved in the sealing of documents are only given for requests to unseal them.
“I think that distinction is telling,” Castillo said, adding that “there is an express difference between sealing and unsealing” documents.
The judge also highlighted 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.”
It also says it’s the prosecutor’s “responsibility to decide in the public interest whether to seek, oppose, accept, or challenge judicial actions and rulings.”
The case’s prosecutor Deputy District Attorney Kaylee De Ruyter took no position on the court’s motion to seal Edwards’ arrest warrant during deliberations, while the clerk’s attorney, David Wellenbrock, objected to the warrant’s sealing, even on a temporary basis.
“If they’re going to try to protect their interests, they’ll have to find another way to go about it,” Wellenbrock said at Friday’s hearing before Castillo’s ruling.
Castillo also acknowledged sealing the warrant likely violated California court rules stating that the “court must not permit a record to be filed under seal based solely on the agreement or stipulation of the parties.”
Neither the defense nor the prosecution initially objected to temporary sealing order pending review of the court’s motion.
“I do believe by error, by stipulation, I sealed the order,” Castillo said.
With the sealing order now in the rear view mirror, Edwards’ case will finally move on to the matter at hand — the crime of which she’s been accused.
Judge Castillo overruled the prosecution’s request to set a trial date for a second time to allow the defense to continue the discovery process. De Ruyter had also requested a trial date be set at a hearing on Tuesday, which Castillo denied, citing other issues in the case that had yet to be hammered out.
A further arraignment hearing has been scheduled for 8:30 a.m. on Feb. 27.
Here’s how Stocktonia is covering the story of school board member’s arrest, search warrant.