SEATTLE — A man who’s serving 24 years for having the cars of two lawyers firebombed might be creeping out prosecutors by seeking information about them under the Public Records Act, but a judge has ruled he’s entitled to keep asking.
King County Superior Court Judge Glenna Hall said she had no authority to bar the arsonist, Allan Parmelee, from making public disclosure requests. Parmelee has filed hundreds of such requests since his incarceration, seeking records on prosecutors, prison guards, state troopers, judges and others who helped put him behind bars.
Alarmed, King County prosecutor Dan Satterberg took the extraordinary step of asking the judge not only to let his office ignore Parmelee’s pending requests, but to bar him from filing any more unless he first obtained court permission — an option the Public Records Act does not contemplate. Parmelee sought to harass his staff, Satterberg wrote, and giving him what he wanted could be dangerous.
Hall said that argument stretched the law.
“Here, the requester has been characterized as not only annoying or vocal, but violent,” Hall wrote in an opinion published Monday. “Even so, the law requires the court to presume that access to the public records he seeks is in the public interest, and not make him show his purpose.”
As for Parmelee’s pending requests, Hall said some must be granted — such as his requests for photographs of King County employees, including judges. Other records, such as personnel files, are exempt.
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