Judge agrees to unseal records of costly murder trial

A Yakima County judge on Friday agreed to unseal some of the billing records in a double-murder case that cost taxpayers more than $2 million in spending by court-appointed defense attorneys.

Acting on a motion by the Yakima Herald-Republic, Superior Court Judge James Lust agreed to unseal billings and invoices in the case of Mario "Gato" Mendez, one of two men convicted in a 2005 drug ripoff that resulted in the shooting deaths of 21-year-old Ricky Causor and his 3-year-old daughter, Mya.

"They want a breakdown (of costs) and I think they're entitled to it," Lust said, referring to the Herald-Republic's interest in the case.

Lust gave Mendez's lawyers until Sept. 15 to redact, or edit out, privileged attorney work product, which consists of impressions, opinions and legal research. They, in turn, vowed to appeal and seek a stay barring the newspaper from seeing the records.

Herald-Republic Publisher Mike Shepard attended Friday's hearing and afterwards hailed Lust's ruling as a small but important step in the newspaper's ongoing -- and costly -- efforts to assert the public's right to see how its money is being spent.

"We're pleased with today's result," he said, "but this situation is far from over."

The Herald-Republic has been battling with lawyers for months over the records, which were sealed early on to protect the rights of Mendez and co-defendant Junior Sanchez. At the time, prosecutors were contemplating the death penalty.

By the time the cases were resolved earlier this year, lawyers for Mendez had racked up more than $560,000 in defense spending, while Sanchez's lawyers spent nearly $1.5 million. By then, the death penalty had been rejected by prosecutors.

The high-octane defense spending was just one of several unusual aspects of the case, which exposed shortcomings in the statutory framework of potential death penalty cases in Washington.

By the time Yakima County Prosecutor Ron Zirkle decided not to seek the death penalty,
Sanchez's lawyers had racked up $1 million in pretrial costs that mostly would have been unnecessary had the possibility of the death penalty not been in play.

A jury in November convicted Sanchez of aggravated first-degree murder. By law he was automatically sentenced to life in prison without parole, the only other punishment besides the death penalty for aggravated murder.

Mendez, meanwhile, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder for his role in the case and was sentenced to 30 years in prison. In a deal with prosecutors, he testified against Sanchez.

In court Friday, Herald-Republic attorney Sarah Wixson argued that case law and Washington State Supreme Court rules recognize the importance of an open court system and that sealed records do not have to remain sealed forever and may be unsealed for compelling reasons.

Mendez's attorney, Mary K. High, argued that the newspaper should have to file a separate lawsuit to get at the records and that, at any rate, the public's interest in seeing records that contain attorney work product is outweighed by the rights of the defendant.

Lust sided with the newspaper, noting that Mendez had pleaded guilty.

"In this case, public funds are involved, and that's what made it a compelling circumstance," he said.

His ruling served as a counterpoint to a ruling a month ago in a separate but related case seeking the financial records in the Sanchez case.

In that ruling, visiting Kittitas County Superior Court Judge Michael Cooper refused to unseal Sanchez's records on the grounds that Washington's judicial system is not governed by the state's Public Records Act.

Lust was appointed to the case in an unusual arrangement in which he reviewed billing requests by defense attorneys as the so-called "budget judge." A different judge handled the actual trial of the case.

Attorneys for the newspaper argued that Lust's handling of the records was inherently administrative, not judicial. Without comment, Cooper disagreed. Instead, he advised the newspaper to ask Lust directly to unseal, much as it did in the Mendez case.

However, the Sanchez case remains alive on appeal, a complicating factor not present in the Mendez case, since Mendez had pleaded guilty.

The newspaper has formally asked Cooper to reconsider.

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