King County wants Justice Sanders recused, saying he stood to gain from ruling

King County has asked the state Supreme Court to vacate a landmark public-records decision issued earlier this year, alleging that Justice Richard Sanders — who wrote the majority opinion — "stood to personally gain" from that decision.

The county said in court papers it was blindsided by the recent revelation Sanders had his own public-records lawsuit pending in Thurston County when he wrote the decision in the case of Armen Yousoufian.

The decision was later cited by Sanders' attorneys in seeking additional fines against the state in Sanders' case.

"Thus Justice Sanders stood to benefit by announcing a rule favorable to his own case," wrote King County Chief Civil Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Kevin Wright. "A justice may not define the scope of rights under state law while simultaneously seeking to personally benefit from that law in other litigation."

Yousoufian's lawyer, Michael Brannan, said he learned of Sanders' pending litigation in news reports only last month.

"They're obviously trying to get rid of the judgment," he said.

The motion, filed late Tuesday, asks the justices to replace Sanders with a temporary justice to rehear the case of Yousoufian, a businessman who sued King County over delays in releasing documents about the financing of Qwest Field.

A Superior Court judge had fined the county $124,000. However, on appeal, Sanders and five other justices found the judge had lowballed the penalties, which they said should approach, if not meet, the $100-a-day maximum allowed under the law.

That meant Yousoufian could seek nearly $900,000.

Moreover, the justices laid out criteria for judges to determine penalties and fines in public-disclosure cases.

Those criteria were later used by Sanders' lawyers in seeking to justify having the fines in his public-disclosure case increased from $18,000 to nearly $600,000.

Sander's lawsuit was filed in 2005 against the state attorney general and involved documents surrounding an incident in which Sanders visited sex offenders at McNeil Island while some of their cases were pending before the state Supreme Court.

Sanders was sanctioned for the incident by the Judicial Conduct Commission.

Sanders' view

Sanders has insisted he has done nothing wrong and said he consulted with the court's ethics attorney before deciding to hear the Yousoufian case.

He said his lawyer had sought the larger fines before the Yousoufian decision was handed down. Sanders has said his lawyers, and not he, will keep all the money.

"I maintain I did not act unethically," he said Wednesday. "King County can make whatever argument they like."

The county is asking that Sanders be recused from rehearing the Yousoufian case and that a temporary justice replace him.

Sanders said he hasn't decided whether he will participate in the court's decision on whether to hear the county's petition, or any ruling on his own fate in the matter.

"I need to read the petition and think this through," he said. "I always try to do the right thing."

Seattle lawyer Thomas Fitzpatrick, a nationally recognized judicial-ethics expert who sits on a committee reviewing the canons of the state's Code of Judicial Conduct, said Sanders may not have had the sort of "economic interest" in the Yousoufian case that could have disqualified him from hearing it.

"He's not a party or related to a party in the case," Fitzpatrick said.

"To me, this is the kind of situation where [a judge] may want to think long and hard about it," Fitzpatrick said. "But I don't think it's a violation of the canons."

The county's petition is the latest ripple from the revelation that Sanders had an active public-disclosure lawsuit while considering the law that would govern it.

Last week, the Court of Appeals decided it could not hear the appeal in Sanders' pending Thurston County case and asked the Supreme Court to take it directly.

The court agreed — and Sanders pointed out he did recuse himself from that decision.

Background on the case

Yousoufian had fought King County over the delay in releasing documents about the public financing for Qwest Field for 12 years, winning at every legal turn.

The county withheld some documents for four years, long after a public referendum on financing for the $300 million stadium.

A judge awarded Yousoufian $124,000, which he argued wasn't nearly enough because of what he called the egregious nature of the violations and because the award did little to deter government from violating public-disclosure laws.

Even though the nine justices issued a total of five opinions, six justices agreed Yousoufian deserved more.

The main issue that divided the court dealt with the discretion of trial judges in determining the penalties.

Mike Carter: 206-464-3706 or mcarter@seattletimes.com