State v. Chen

¶1 The central issue in this case is the apparent conflict between a statutory requirement that arguably limits disclosure of competency evaluations prepared pursuant to chapter 10.77 RCW and our state constitutional requirement that “[j]ustice in all cases shall be administered openly.” Wash. Const, art. I, § 10. Once the competency evaluation was filed with the court, the trial court relied on it to determine the defendant’s competency to stand trial and, applying Ishikawa,1 denied the defendant’s motion to seal the entire evaluation. We accepted direct discretionary review of that…