Upcoming Courtroom Round #6: State Supreme Court to hear Yousoufian vs. Ron Sims/King County (again) - February 26

Announcement: Upcoming (February 26, 2008) Courtroom Round #6 of my nearly 11 year old Public Disclosure Act request for sports stadium documents and the ensuing litigation to force the documents out of King County Executive Ron Sims' office.

Subject: On February 26, 2008, at Seattle University, the state's highest court will (again) hear my case, as a result of King County's appeal of the February 5, 2007 ruling in my favor at the Court of Appeals

As previously reported (see links below to selected earlier posts), the state Court of Appeals, Division I, ruled favorably on my case on February 5, 2007. Subsequently, King County appealed that ruling to the state's highest court, which had previously heard my case in 2004 (at which time I was the appellant).

Early this month, the state's highest court granted King County's Petition for Review to hear this case - again.

Oral argument will be Tuesday morning, February 26, 2008, in Seattle, at Seattle University, at their School of Law. This is open to the public and I welcome folks to attend and watch the proceedings.

The court session is scheduled to start at 9 AM. The exact location is the Fred Dore H. Courtroom in the School of Law building at Seattle University, on its main campus on Capitol Hill, in Seattle (between Broadway on west side and 12th Avenue on east side, and between East Madison Street on north side and East Cherry Street on south side). See: http://www.seattleu.edu/home/campus_community/visit_campus/directions_area_maps/driving_to_main_campus/ There's a large parking garage (reasonable parking rates) at the SW corner of the campus, accessed off Broadway, just north of James Street. The Law School is on the east side of the campus, off 12th Avenue.


By the way, on top of this case already being so unusual in having already been heard by appellate courts three times (twice by the Court of Appeals, Division I and once before by the Washington State Supreme Court), and now heading for the state Supreme Court for a second time, it's going to be heard "on the road" at Seattle University. This will be two out of two times it'll be heard before a larger audience, outside the normal (small audience holding) courtroom in Olympia (in 2004, my case was one of three heard "on the road" at the University of Washington's Law School). It's my understanding that the cases selected to be heard on these "on the road" occasions (that's the Supreme Court's description, at their website, not mine) are those of the most compelling public interest. So for my case to now be chosen two out of two times to be put in this category is another honor. And it certainly will be increasing its exposure, as the courtroom at Seattle U holds a lot more people than the one in Olympia, and is obviously more convenient to get to for folks in the Seattle metro area.


I encourage folks to get there early, as it'll be first come first served, and I can only imagine Seattle U students will occupy many seats. Also, from past experience (my own case, the Millers' case at Tacoma Community College, etc.) the Chief Justice makes a number of interesting preliminary remarks at the start of each half day session. My case is scheduled as the second case of the morning session on February 26, with the first case being scheduled for 20 minutes per side of oral argument. But that order and timing could change, and I've seen it happen when a lawyer for a given case called the court to say he'd missed a ferry and would be arriving past his scheduled start time, and a later case was moved up on the spot! So I'd encourage anyone planning to attend this to arrive before 9 AM and allow for a couple of hours.


As many of you might already know, the Supreme Court issues its rulings in cases it hears some 6 to 12 months (occasionally longer) after the "oral argument" takes place. (e.g. In 2004, my case was heard in mid-January, and the ruling was released in September.)


Below, for background, are selected links from this blog's archives re: what happened last February:


http://yousoufian.blogspot.com/2007/02/seattle-times-latest-article-on-court.html


http://yousoufian.blogspot.com/2007/02/seattle-post-intelligencer-article-on.html


http://yousoufian.blogspot.com/2007/02/associated-press-coverage-of-latest.html


http://yousoufian.blogspot.com/2007/02/link-to-podcast-of-full-hour-on-dori.html

http://yousoufian.blogspot.com/2007/02/court-of-appeals-rules-favorably.html

http://yousoufian.blogspot.com/2007/02/feb-5-2007-seattle-weekly-post-on.html

http://yousoufian.blogspot.com/2007_02_01_archive.html

http://yousoufian.blogspot.com/2007/02/feb-12-2007-olympia-editorial.html

Below, fyi, is some material out of the state Supreme Court's letter to the lawyers involved in my case:

Re:
Supreme Court No. 80081 -2 - Armen Yousoufian v. The Office of Ron Sims, et al.
Clerk and Counsel:

The above case has been set for oral argument on February 26,2008, as the 2nd case.
Oral argument will be held at Seattle University in the Fred H. Dore courtroom. Cases 1 and 2 will be heard in the morning session, with Court convening at 9:00 a.m.

Oral argument will be twenty minutes per side. If a party wishes to request thirty minutes
per side for oral argument, the request must be submitted in writing. The Court strongly
encourages that, whenever possible, oral argument should be presented by only one-or at most
two-counsel per side.

Opinions are usually released at 8:00 a.m. on Thursdays. On Wednesdays, a notice will
be on the court's homepage, http://www.courts.wa.gov/home.cfm, of those opinions that may
be released the next morning. E-mail notification of opinion releases is also available by
signing up at the court's web site. Once the opinion in this case is released, counsel for both
parties will be notified by e-mail and a scanned copy of the opinion will be sent as an attachment
to e-mail the same day. For this reason, all counsel should provide this office with a current, up-
to-date, e-mail address. Hard copies of the opinion will no longer be mailed, unless counsel does
not have a viable e-mail address. The opinion is also available on the court's homepage
(http://www.courts.wa.gov/opinions/recent.cfm)