Ruling on a lawsuit filed by the Yakima Herald-Republic, a judge refused to unseal attorney billing records from a possible death penalty case that has cost Yakima County taxpayers just over $2 million.

In a five-page decision released Monday, Kittitas County Superior Court Judge Michael Cooper held that the documents sought by the newspaper are court records, not county records, and as a result, Washington State's Public Records Act does not apply in the case.

Instead, Cooper said the newspaper must get permission to unseal the records from Yakima County Superior Court Judge James C. Lust, who sealed the records in the first place. Cooper heard the case last week as a conflict-of-interest favor to Yakima County judges.

"This court," Cooper wrote, "determines the Public Records Act has no application to the Yakima Herald-Republic's request for the particular records it seeks."

Herald-Republic Editor and Vice President Sarah Jenkins said she was disappointed by the ruling and was unsure how the newspaper would proceed until she and Publisher Mike Shepard meet today with the Herald-Republic's attorneys.

The setback does nothing to diminish the newspaper's belief that the public has a right to know how defense attorneys racked up $2 million in the case.

"This is $2 million of the people's money, and the people have a right to know how it was spent," she said, adding, "Despite the judge's ruling, that hasn't changed."

The newspaper has been seeking the records as part of its ongoing coverage of the Causor murder case, which has cost taxpayers an unprecedented $2 million in defense costs.

The newspaper filed the lawsuit against Yakima County after Prosecutor Ron Zirkle, who represents the county, declined to release billings, receipts and invoices submitted by court-appointed attorneys for Jose "Junior" Sanchez and Mario "Gato" Mendez, who were convicted for the 2005 shooting deaths of 21-year-old Ricky Causor and his 3-year-old daughter, Mya.

Zirkle defended his decision on the grounds that the courts are not governed by the Public Records Act and that he could be cited for contempt if he released the documents.

Instead, the county filed a motion in tandem with the newspaper's lawsuit asking the court for guidance.

Jenkins said she was disturbed by the brevity of Cooper's ruling, which failed to address the newspaper's central argument that Lust's handling of the records in the case was inherently administrative, not judicial.

If that's true, then the records would be subject to the Public Records Act. Lust was appointed to the case in an unusual arrangement in which he reviewed billing requests by defense attorneys. The criminal side of the case was handled by Judge James Hutton, who has since become a federal magistrate.

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 Zirkle decided not to seek the death penalty, Junior Sanchez's defense attorneys had racked up roughly $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.

Sanchez is appealing his conviction, a complicating factor in the newspaper's records request.

Mendez 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.