State Supreme Court upholds courtroom secrecy in Hecht trial

Depositions in criminal trials aren’t open to the public just because they’re conducted in courtrooms, the Washington State Supreme Court ruled Thursday.

The 7-2 decision was a defeat for The News Tribune, and a footnote to the trial of Pierce County Superior Court Judge Michael Hecht, who was convicted in 2009 of felony harassment and patronizing a prostitute. He later resigned from the bench.

Thursday’s ruling revolved around a deposition conducted in September 2009, weeks before Hecht’s trial began. A judge closed the proceeding to the public. The News Tribune argued the decision was wrong. The high court said it wasn’t.

The witness, Joseph Pfeiffer, was in custody at the Pierce County Jail at the time, held on a material witness warrant. He was expected to testify that Hecht had paid him for sex on several occasions.

Attorneys scheduled a deposition in a Pierce County courtroom. The defense wanted the deposition closed to the public. Superior Court Judge James Cayce, a visiting judge from King County, agreed to the condition.

News Tribune reporter Adam Lynn and attorney James Beck, representing the newspaper, appeared at the courtroom and objected to the closed proceeding. Cayce ruled against them. The News Tribune appealed the ruling, demanding a copy of the deposition transcript and video of the testimony.

In a sense, the argument was moot. Hecht’s trial ended in 2009. Pfeiffer testified, but his deposition was never entered into evidence.

Depositions are a standard feature of pretrial discovery. Typically they’re not open to the public, though transcripts can be entered into evidence later. They often are taken in law offices rather than courtrooms. Judges often don’t attend.

Pfeiffer’s deposition veered from common practice. He was an inmate, and there had been some question about his willingness to testify.

For that reason, and for convenience, Hecht’s defense attorney, Wayne Fricke, asked to conduct the deposition at the Pierce County courthouse, and requested that Cayce be present.

The Supreme Court’s ruling examined the nature of depositions, their relationship to pretrial discovery and the boundaries of public access to court proceedings.

The News Tribune argued that conducting Pfeiffer’s deposition in a courtroom triggered the rules governing public access to court proceedings. In response, Cayce’s lawyer argued the deposition was not a formal hearing; thus, it wasn’t subject to rules of access.

The high court sided with Cayce, citing past rulings linked to the same issue. The references included a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that pretrial depositions are not public components of a trial, and the public does not enjoy automatic access to them.

The ruling, written by Chief Justice Barbara Madsen, rejected the newspaper’s argument that holding the deposition in a courtroom with a judge on hand created a public proceeding.

“Contrary to the News Tribune’s contentions, the facts that the deposition occurred in a courtroom with a judge present who ruled on objections to testimony did not turn this deposition into a judicial hearing that had to be open to the public and the press,” the ruling states.

“Whether a deposition is a deposition does not depend upon where it takes place.”

Two justices, Gerry Alexander and pro tem justice Richard Sanders, dissented. Alexander agreed that routine depositions generally are not open to the public. However, he noted, the Pfeiffer deposition was far from routine. “This proceeding, in sum, had all the earmarks of a court session at which justice was being administered,” Alexander wrote.

“At the very least, the proceeding at which the deposition was taken was a de facto court proceeding and it should have been open so that members of the public and the press who were present could hear Pfeiffer’s testimony and observe the demeanor of the witness.”