Letter from the Editor: Oregon should not have a separate, secret court system for the rich

Article I, section 10 of the Oregon Constitution provides that “no court shall be secret, but justice shall be administered, openly and without purchase.” That rule applies to all courts in Oregon, including juvenile courts and civil matters such as divorces.

But apparently it doesn’t apply to the rich and famous.

As a longtime advocate for open courts and government transparency, I find that extremely troubling.

In 2023, beloved former Trail Blazer Damian Lillard and his wife, Kay’La, went to court to get divorced. Divorces happen every day in courthouses all around Oregon — nothing unusual there.

However, divorce records for average Oregonians like you and me are public.

Every document in the Lillard divorce is secret.

And the judge’s order sealing the case is also sealed from public view.

Then, all records of the existence of the divorce case disappeared from the Oregon eCourts online database, used by journalists and others to track court cases.

Open courts? Sounds like secret courts to me.

Do I care about every detail of the Lillards’ divorce? Not really.

But I do care deeply about open courts and the principle of basic fairness.

Oregon should not have one court system for the rich and one for the rest of us.

I asked the Clackamas County presiding judge, Michael Wetzel, for a copy of the order sealing the case. The Oregonian/OregonLive historically has stood in as a proxy for the public in defending your right of access to government records and court files.

I pointed out that the public knows the details of the divorces of many rich and famous people, such as Jeff Bezos and Michael Jordan, which were extensively covered in the press.

That’s about when every trace of the entire case disappeared from the public database.

I asked the state Judicial Department for an explanation of when entire cases could be removed from the database, known as Oregon eCourt Case Information.

“Due to an administrative error, the entire case was inadvertently sealed for a short period, temporarily preventing it from appearing in OECI,” said Todd Sprague, public information officer for the Judicial Department. “This issue has now been corrected.”

Indeed, the record of the case reappeared online, but the actual documents remained inaccessible under the sealing order.

A few days later, on Feb. 10, lawyers for both Damian Lillard and Kay’La Lillard filed a motion “to seal Oregon eCourt Case Information.” A proposed order doing so was signed by a judge.

Shortly thereafter, all traces of the divorce once again disappeared from the court database.

To be sure, some information in divorce cases is sensitive, and a document here or there will be filed under seal. But the entire case file?

Definitely unusual.

For now, I just wanted to see the court order. Only then could I decide whether the reasons the judge set forth made sense. Only then could we decide if we wanted to challenge the secrecy, as news organizations sometimes do.

No dice – at least, not without an expensive court battle.

“I have previously offered to set a hearing on this issue, and the court would certainly consider releasing the seal order to the public (as well as possibly unsealing some or all of the case documents),” Wetzel said last week. “If The Oregonian is interested in pursuing this, the proper pleadings can be filed and a hearing set.”

(Several judges have handled the divorce case, and Wetzel was not the judge who sealed it. He was not able, under judicial ethics rules, to answer my other questions about the case.)

The Lillards’ attorneys responded to my request for comment with a joint statement, saying the divorce is a “private matter.”

“It is not newsworthy, nor does it implicate a matter of public interest,” they said. To be sure, they are not doing anything improper. They are simply advocating for their clients’ interests.

Damian Lillard’s West Linn riverfront mansion looked like this in 2017 when he purchased the property from Mark Donegan, CEO of Precision Castparts.

Harnish Properties

Fans care about Damian Lillard. His departure from the Portland Trail Blazers was heartbreaking for many.

When his Willamette River mansion with its infinity pool went up for sale

, eyes popped.

Lillard’s contract earns him tens of millions each season, even after this one ended with an injury. And three of the highest-powered law firms in the state are involved: Gevurtz Menashe, Stahancyk Kent & Hook and Markowitz Herbold.

So if you can afford high-priced attorneys — and find judges to go along — you get access to a secret court system in Oregon.

The poor, the middle class, everyday Oregonians? You get the public system, the one that has worked just fine since 1859.

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