Judicial silence needs unsealing

The rape of a 13-year-old girl under state care is heartbreaking for its effect on this young life. But just as distressing in the story told in The Seattle Times is the audacity exhibited by adults who failed her and further sought to protect a flawed system from public accountability.

Times investigative reporters and lawyers wrested the case's tragic secrets from the confines of the courthouse after a four-month court battle to get the file unsealed. The case of Lynn — The Times does not identify sexual-assault victims — is among 25 cases unsealed in The Times' legal efforts to open improperly sealed cases about medical malpractice, unsafe consumer products and wrongdoing in community institutions. Two requests were denied, seven are pending and one was withdrawn. That's a compelling track record, which illustrates that many King County judges continue in a conspiracy of silence, keeping improperly sealed case files closed.

The story told of lax practices and unheeded warnings that, in 2001, led to Lynn's exploitation.

A judge granted a motion by the girl's attorney to seal the entire case file "to protect all parties from embarrassment" because it "demonstrates unfavorable facts" about both the state of Washington and YouthCare, an agency that cares for troubled young people.

In doing so, however, the judge kept from the public insight into a taxpayer-supported system that permitted inexcusable, dangerous and damaging carelessness.

Judicial collusion to keep embarrassments secret has been all too common. Last spring, a Times investigation found 420 King County lawsuits that had been sealed from public view since 1990 — about 97 percent without following a high state Supreme Court-established standard. Last spring, the Supreme Court passed even stricter rules about sealing future cases.

Considering how many of these sealing decisions haven't held up under legal scrutiny, it's time the county's Superior Court judges reconsider a proposal they rejected last spring after The Times' findings began to reverberate. These elected judges voted 21-9 against a responsible proposal that would unseal the improperly closed records unless the parties could make a case, under the appropriate standard, that they should remain sealed.

The burden should be on these judges to right their own wrongs — not to continue in a conspiracy of improper silence.