Legal battle over identifying Seattle officers at pro-Trump rally preceding Jan. 6 insurrection continues

Oral arguments in an ongoing legal battle over publicly identifying four Seattle police officers who attended the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” rally ahead of the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol were heard by the Washington State Supreme Court Tuesday morning.

Lawyers for the four officers argue that there is no “compelling government or public interest” in disclosing their names, citing their First Amendment right to assemble and the potential for harassment. But open government and police accountability advocates say the disclosure of their identities is in the public interest.

A ruling by the court is to come at a later date.

The identities of those four officers have not been released by the Office of Police Accountability or the police department. Tuesday’s hearing was part of an ongoing case intended to establish whether their names are subject to release under Washington’s Public Records Act.

“The real issue is, did they anticipate this attendance to be published in the manner that it will presumably be published in, if their identities are linked to their participation at this event?” said attorney Blair Russ, who is representing the four unnamed Seattle police officers.

Two of the six off-duty Seattle police officers in attendance at the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” rally were found by Seattle’s Office of Police Accountability to have trespassed on Capitol grounds amid the insurrection that followed. Those officers, a married couple named Caitlin Everett and Alexander Everett, were publicly identified by the Seattle Police Department in August after interim Police Chief Adrian Diaz fired them.

RELATED: Seattle police chief fires two officers for actions at Capitol riots

The Office of Police Accountability further determined that three of the six officers who went to the Jan. 6 rally had not broken department policy, and that their “attendance was protected by the First Amendment, and they were entitled to assemble and exercise their freedom of expression.”

The agency said it could neither implicate nor exonerate a fourth officer for any misconduct while in D.C., contrary to the officers' attorneys’ assertion that all four of them had been cleared of wrongdoing.

Aric Bomsztyk, who is also representing the four unnamed officers, argued on Tuesday that one has a right to privacy “even though they are exercising those first amendment rights in public, in broad view,” citing a 2002 U.S. Supreme Court case in which a law prohibiting door-to-door religious canvassing was struck down.

Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis said she agreed that one’s political beliefs could be considered a private aspect of one’s life. But she questioned the idea that participating in a public demonstration could also be considered a private matter.

“If you're going to go to a public event, where there's press and the president is there and there’s a widespread national discussion about this event, how is participation in that an intimate aspect of one's life?” she said.

Attorney Janet Thoman is among those fighting for the release of the four unnamed officers’ identities. Thoman echoed Montoya-Lewis, and questioned how the officers could reasonably expect their participation in the “Stop the Steal” rally to remain private in the age of digital media.

“Even if they could avoid press, they would have to avoid everyone with a cell phone,” Thoman said.

Thoman also pointed to what she said was a lack of evidence that the officers would be subject to harassment or doxxing if publicly identified.

A King County judge previously denied the four officers’ request for an injunction to stop the release of their names in records disclosed by the City of Seattle. However, the city halted the release of their identities — despite previously preparing to do so — in the wake of the officers appealing that court decision, and pending a ruling by the state Supreme Court.

The case was escalated to the Washington State Supreme Court upon the request of law student Sam Sueoka, who was sued by the officers after requesting their identities from the City of Seattle amid the investigation into their conduct on Jan. 6. Sueoka and other advocates are asking the higher court to uphold the King County Superior Court’s decision.

Attorney Neil Fox co-represents Sueoka with Thoman. During Tuesday’s oral arguments, Fox stated “the anonymous police officers in this case have not maintained their burden of maintaining anonymity.”

“It is their burden to prove to this court…that there is a serious and imminent threat to an identified compelling privacy interest or safety concerns that outweighs the public interest in the open administration justice,” Fox continued.

Carolyn Boies, assistant city attorney for Seattle, also spoke at Tuesday’s hearing, and said the city’s public records officers needed clarity from the court regarding the scope of the current halt on releasing the officers’ names. Boies said records officers have been left to guess what they can or can’t release, based on individual records requests.

“It would be unworkable and untenable for public disclosure officers to have to consider and guess about what might be implied, or inferred, or assumed if you combine different records together.”