It's Personal: Weekly Battles Judge Over Divorce File p.11

By: M.L. Stein Calif. weekly wants files unsealed to prove 'fitness for office'
of local judge it has consistently skewered; he accuses paper of 'vengeance and harassment'

Acting as his own attorney, a reporter for a maverick California weekly has pressed his suit against a local judge to an appellate hearing in an effort to obtain the jurist's sealed divorce record. And it seems that he will, at least, achieve a partial victory.
Mark Heimann, who works for the Anderson Valley Advertiser in rural Mendocino County, believes Municipal Judge Vincent T. Lechowick has been held in contempt several times for not paying child support and wants to prove it with the divorce file. Lechowick has argued that the file is a personal affair whose exposure would embarrass his two teenage sons. Moreover, the judge has claimed that Heimann's action is part of an ongoing vendetta against him by the Advertiser because of his past rulings against the reporter and his publisher, Bruce Anderson.
Heimann, 44, who is not a lawyer, managed to get a hearing in Superior Court, where a visiting judge not only refused to release the divorce papers for "the protection of the children" but also denied Heimann a transcript of the open hearing, saying that, too, was part of the sealed case. Litigation over the divorce has dragged on for nine years, during which, according to Heimann, four or five judges have kept the file closed with the concurrence of Lechowick's former wife, who lives in Oregon.
The reporter alleges that at one of the contempt hearings, a judge ordered Lechowick to sell his $30,000 Audi to raise money for child support payments for his sons, ages 13 and 16.
The San Francisco Daily Journal reported that at the show-cause hearing last August, Heimann argued that he found no legal precedent to justify sealing a divorce file and that a party seeking to seal a case must show a compelling interest in confidentiality. Lechowick responded, "To open up and publicize family disagreements in the name of the lowest standards in the world, 'newsworthiness,' would grant every so-called 'freelance news reporter' a blanket 'Kenneth Starr' pass into every family home in California."
Lechowick also contended that a judge does not lose his privacy rights simply by holding public office. "To hold otherwise," he continued, "would have a chilling effect on those interested in public service. The filing of a dissolution action does not grant carte blanche to the press for a more detailed invasion of family privacy."
Lechowick, 49, also accuses Heimann of going after him for "vengeance and harassment." In 1984, Lechowick sentenced Anderson to 60 days in jail for punching the superintendent of schools at a board meeting.
Heimann, the record shows, came before Lechowick for violating a restraining order obtained by his then-girlfriend a few years ago.
"Actually, my lawyer and I thought he issued a pretty fair decision in my case," Heimann said in an interview. "He put me on a judicial diversion program for nine months and after that time the violation would be wiped off the books if I stayed away from her. I don't understand why Lechowick thinks I am sore about that," he added, laughing.
Denying either case motivated the dispute, the reporter said, "We see the function of a newspaper as getting out there and telling it like it is. Except, perhaps, for removing certain portions of the file that would be detrimental to the children, there is no reason why it should not be made public." He said the Advertiser is not seeking to invade the family's privacy but to determine Lechowick's fitness for office.
In a piece headlined "Judge Lechowick's Courtroom Freak Out," Heimann referred to him as "Vinnie" and called his argument in Superior Court "lunatic ravings."
And there was the mysterious "Dear Vinnie" letter to Lechowick stating: "I'm not done with you yet 'Punko.' I'm gonna learn you some manners old boy. never (sic) mess with the press, especially this press." Signed "Your Favorite Yellow Journalist," the letter calls the judge "human excrement."
Heimann denied in the Advertiser that he wrote the letter, which Lechowick turned over to the police, and suggested that Lechowick himself wrote it to bolster his case. He offered to take a lie detector test and to submit a handwriting sample if Lechowick did the same.
At one point in the lower court hearing, Lechowick, waving a copy of the Advertiser, declared, "This is not a newspaper, and that is not a reporter," referring to Heimann.
In an interview, Lechowick said it is common for courts to seal transcripts in divorce proceedings.
Of Heimann and Anderson, he said, "There's no way to respond to people who make these kinds of attacks. Basically this is a man who has been a criminal defendant and an editor who has been a criminal defendant. We are not talking about a normal reporter and a normal newspaper. He can make all the accusations in the world, and if I say they are not true, he says prove it by opening the files."
Jane Kirtley, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, said divorce files have traditionally been sealed but cited a growing tendency toward openness.
It would seem the judge has some reason to believe he's not on the Advertiser's most-admired list. Last February, Anderson published an editorial headed "The Second Worst Judge in the County." The rating was given to another judge, and Anderson notified readers that Lechowick, in the paper's opinion, was No. 1 in that category.
At a June 17 hearing before the state's 1st District Court of Appeals, a three-justice panel strongly indicated that as many as four trial courts erred on Lechowick's divorce file. Before taking the case, the court expressed doubts about sealing an entire divorce file and suggested it might remand the case back to the trial court.
Presiding Justice J. Anthony Kline told Heimann the court probably would not address the "cosmic issue" of whether family cases should be sealed but will examine instead whether proper procedure was used in the lower courts.
The Advertiser, which is published in a shed next to Anderson's house in Boonville, has long riled local officials ? and advertisers ? with its feisty, nontraditional approach to reporting and its blistering editorials.
"We pissed off our advertisers a long time ago," Heimann disclosed. "Except for very few ads, we depend on subscriptions to keep us going." A year's subscription is $38 and single copies are $1. Anderson's wife, Ling, said the paper has a paid circulation of 3,000, "including some papers we send overseas."
?("To open up and publicize family disagreements in the name of the lowest standards in the world, 'newsworthiness,' would grant every
so-called 'freelance news reporter' a blanket 'Kenneth Starr' pass into every family home in California.") [Caption]
?(? Vincent T. Lechowick, municipal judge) [Photo]
?("We see the function of a newspaper as getting out there and telling it like it is. Except, perhaps, for removing certain portions of the file that would be detrimental to the children, there is no reason why it should not be made public.") [Caption]
?(? Mark Heimann, reporter, Anderson Valley Advertiser) [Photo)
?(Editor & Publisher Web Site: http: www.mediainfo. com) [caption]
?(Editor & Publisher, July 4, 1998) [Caption]