By GENE JOHNSON
The Associated Press
SEATTLE — An arsonist imprisoned for firebombing the cars of two lawyers might be creeping out prosecutors with requests for information about the people who helped put him in prison, but he’s entitled to keep asking, a judge said.
King County Superior Court Judge Glenna Hall said she had no authority to bar Allan Parmelee from making public records requests seeking records on prosecutors, prison guards, state troopers, judges and others.
Parmelee has filed hundreds of such requests since his incarceration.
Prosecutor Dan Satterberg asked Hall not only to let his office ignore the pending requests but also to bar Parmelee from filing more unless he first obtains court permission.
Parmelee is trying to harass his staff, Satterberg argued, and giving him what he wants could be dangerous.
That argument stretched the law, Hall wrote in an opinion published Monday.
He “has been characterized as not only annoying or vocal, but violent,” she wrote. “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.”
Hall said some of Parmelee’s pending requests must be granted — such as his requests for photographs of King County employees, including judges; lists of names, job titles and pay scales. They all are public records.
Other records he requested, such as personnel files, are exempt.
In a telephone interview from McNeil Island Corrections Center, where he is in solitary confinement, Parmelee said Tuesday he was generally pleased with the ruling.
He said he’s trying to shed light on who the public officials are and how the government works and believes he was wrongly convicted of arson. He denied that was trying to harass anyone.
“I’m basically just a guy everybody loves to hate,” he said.
The prosecutor’s office is considering whether to appeal, spokesman Dan Donohoe said Tuesday.
Parmelee was convicted in 2004 at his second trial of first-degree arson in the firebombing of one vehicle belonging to his ex-wife’s divorce lawyer and another belonging to an attorney who represented his roommate’s ex-girlfriend.
His first trial ended in a mistrial because he was found to have personal information about the jurors.
Under the state’s public records law, much personal information is exempt from disclosure.
If a record is public, agencies can’t decide to release it to one person but not another. There is no limit on how many requests someone can file.
One of Parmelee’s lawyers, Michael Kahrs, praised Hall’s ruling.
“Judge Hall has tried to balance the interests of a public records requester with the intent of the law and the interests of the employees of the agency,” he said. “She was just following the law.”