Sorenson v. Superior Court of Monterey Cnty.

• Decision Date: 13 November 2013
• Docket Number: No. H038295,H038295
• Citation: 219 Cal.App.4th 409,161 Cal.Rptr.3d 794
• Court: California Court of Appeals Court of Appeals
• Parties: Christopher SORENSON, Petitioner, v. The SUPERIOR COURT of Monterey County, Respondent; The People, et al., Real Parties in Interest.

219 Cal.App.4th 409

161 Cal.Rptr.3d 794

Christopher SORENSON, Petitioner,

v.The SUPERIOR COURT of Monterey County, Respondent;

The People, et al., Real Parties in Interest.

No. H038295

Court of Appeal,

Sixth District, California.

Filed September 4, 2013

Review Denied November 13, 2013 ^*

*. Baxter and Chin, JJ., are of the opinion the petition should be granted.

See 3 Witkin, Cal. Procedure (5th ed. 2008) Actions, § 80 et seq.

(Monterey County Super. Ct. Nos. SS112361, MH4621, MH4654, MH4924, MH4928, MH4934, MH5082, MH5119, MH5129), Trial Judge: The Honorable Mark E. Hood.

James S. Egar, Public Defender, Donald Earl Landis Jr., Assistant Public Defender, Monterey County Public Defender's Office, for Petitioner Christopher Sorenson.

Dean D. Flippo, District Attorney for Monterey County, Glenn Pesenhofer, Deputy District Attorney, for Real party in Interest The People.

James M. Chadwick, Palo Alto, David E. Snyder, San Francisco, Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, for Real party in Interest The Monterey County Herald.

Márquez, J.

The County of Monterey in two separate proceedings sought to involuntarily commit petitioner Christopher Sorenson, pursuant to the Lanterman–Petris–Short Act (Welf. & Inst.Code, § 5000 et seq; LPS Act or Act).¹ These LPS conservatorship proceedings resulted in two jury trials, occurring in June and November 2011, to determine whether Sorenson was gravely disabled due to mental illness within the meaning of the LPS Act. Sorenson was not involuntarily conserved.

Sorenson was subsequently charged with the murder of his mother, her death occurring just eight days after the conclusion of the second LPS trial. The Monterey County District Attorney, on behalf of the People, made an informal request to the court reporter for copies of the reporter's transcripts of the two LPS jury trials as an aid to the prosecution of the charged crime. Additionally, a local newspaper, The Salinas Californian (The Californian), requested that the court clerk give it access to the entire files from those two LPS proceedings. The presiding judge of the superior court denied both requests in separate minute orders, reasoning that the court files were confidential under the Act. The People then filed a formal motion for an order granting access to copies of the reporter's transcripts of the two LPS jury trials. One week later, a second local newspaper, The Monterey County Herald (The Herald), filed a motion requesting that the court grant it access to the court files of eight LPS proceedings involving Sorenson. The Herald's motion was later joined by The Californian.² After briefing and a hearing, a different superior court judge—assigned by the presiding judge to hear all matters pertaining to Sorenson, including the pending requests by the People and the media—granted the People, the media, and Sorenson access to the reporter's transcripts of the two LPS jury trials. Sorenson challenges that order by this petition for writ of mandate.

Very significant, competing interests are claimed by the parties. Sorenson claims that the release of the trial transcripts would violate (1) section 5118, which (he claims) makes LPS trials presumptively nonpublic, (2) his right to confidentiality under section 5328 of the Act, (3) his constitutional right to privacy, and (4) his confidentiality rights under the psychotherapist-patient privilege. The People and the media claim a First Amendment right of public access to the LPS trial transcripts, because such a constitutional right exists for all “ordinary civil trials and proceedings.” (NBC Subsidiary (KNBC–TV), Inc. v. Superior Court (1999) 20 Cal.4th 1178, 1212, 86 Cal.Rptr.2d 778, 980 P.2d 337 (NBC Subsidiary ).) They also claim a statutory right of access under Code of Civil Procedure section 124, which provides that, absent express statutory exceptions, “the sittings of every court shall be public”; they contend that section 5118 is not such a statutory exception.

We conclude that the court erred in granting the People and the media access to the transcripts from Sorenson's two LPS jury trials. In so holding, we conclude that involuntary conservatorship proceedings under the LPS Act are not “ordinary civil trials and proceedings” (NBC Subsidiary, supra, 20 Cal.4th at p. 1212, 86 Cal.Rptr.2d 778, 980 P.2d 337) that are presumptively public. Rather, they are special proceedings. But they are not special proceedings for which there is a qualified First Amendment right of public access. There is not such a tradition of openness or utility associated with having the proceedings public to support a finding of a constitutional right of access. Furthermore, section 5118 makes LPS jury trials presumptively nonpublic, thereby constituting a statutory exception to Code of Civil Procedure section 124's general requirement that such “sittings ... be public.” We hold that the superior court erred in concluding that, notwithstanding that LPS jury trials are presumptively nonpublic, the parties by their conduct “were deemed to have ‘requested’ [under section 5118] that the hearings be public.” We will therefore grant the petition for writ of mandate.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

The People are prosecuting Sorenson for murder in Monterey Superior Court Case Number SS112361.³ On December 21, 2011, a reporter from The Californian made a written request by two-sentence letter to the respondent superior court “to view and/or make copies of the case files” in two LPS proceedings involving Sorenson (Case numbers MH004654 and MH005129). The reporter indicated that the request was made because “there may be information in those documents that is the public's right to know.” At or about the same time, the People, through the Monterey County District Attorney's Office, made an informal request to the court reporter for copies of the jury trial transcripts in those two proceedings.⁴ The court (Presiding Judge Timothy Roberts) denied the two requests by separate orders dated January 18, 2012, observing that LPS conservatorship hearings and their associated court files were “deemed confidential.”.

On February 1, 2012, the People filed a pleading captioned “request for reconsideration of order denying request for transcripts of jury trial.” (Capitalization omitted.) In that motion, the People requested that the court “allow [them] to inspect the records of Mr. Sorenson's [LPS conservatorship] trials, and to obtain the trial transcripts at [their] cost.” One week later, The Herald filed a motion (labeled “petition”) to examine the sealed-records files of eight LPS proceedings involving Sorenson—the two proceedings identified in The Californian's prior letter request (Case numbers MH004654 and MH005129), along with six other identified cases. A declaration and memorandum of points and authorities were attached to The Herald's motion.

On March 19, 2012, a different superior court judge (Judge Mark E. Hood) set a hearing on the People's and The Herald's motions, identifying five legal issues for consideration.⁵ According to Judge Hood's subsequent order, Presiding Judge Roberts had “specially assigned these matters ... for review of issues pertaining to requests to access any information contained in the above-referenced [LPS] cases and for reconsideration of any of his prior rulings.” Further briefs were submitted on behalf of the People, The Herald,⁶ and Sorenson. The Herald indicated in its brief that it was seeking an order (1) unsealing the transcripts of Sorenson's two LPS jury trials, (2) unsealing all of the records of eight enumerated mental health proceedings involving Sorenson, and (3) “correcting the systematic and automatic sealing of all records relating to LPS Act proceedings.”

After hearing argument and taking the matter under submission, the court entered an order on May 2, 2012, granting the People, the media, and Sorenson access to copies of the reporter's transcripts of the jury trials conducted in two LPS proceedings involving Sorenson (case numbers MH005082 and MH005129). In so ruling, the court held that hearings under the LPS Act are nonpublic unless either party requests a public hearing; neither party requested a public hearing in either of the LPS trials in controversy; the record indicated that the trials proceeded as public hearings without objection by either party; and therefore the parties by their conduct were “deemed to have ‘requested’ that the hearings be public” under section 5118. The court also denied the media's request for “access to all files and records associated with [Sorenson's] LPS Act proceedings,” concluding that the files and information were confidential and not discoverable under section 5328. The court issued a 15–day temporary stay of its order.

On May 16, 2012, Sorenson filed a petition for writ of mandate or prohibition and a request for temporary stay with this court. On the same date, we granted a temporary stay of respondent court's order and invited real parties in interest to submit preliminary opposition to the petition. After receiving the People's preliminary opposition and Sorenson's reply, we issued an order directing respondent court to show cause why a peremptory writ of mandate should not issue as requested in the petition. The People filed a return to the petition,⁷ and Sorenson filed a formal reply.

DISCUSSION

I. Request for Dismissal and Mootness

On April 26, 2013, after briefing was concluded, Sorenson filed, by one-sentence letter, a request that the court dismiss his petition. The language of the letter was uninformative, and vaguely referenced exhibits attached to the People's prior motion to dismiss,⁸ which dismissal motion this court denied without prejudice.⁹ But the apparent basis for Sorenson's request was that he had entered a change of plea in February 2013 and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, and thereafter had signed a document indicating that he “conditionally waive[d] any privacy rights to...