Mar 7, 2024 By Mike Jones 5 min read

A trial judge in Westmoreland County “abused (his) discretion” when he denied three newspapers from seeing the public docket that named a suspect and listed the criminal charges in connection with the execution-style killing at a Rostraver Township strip mall in 2022, an appellate court ruled Wednesday.

The state Superior Court affirmed that criminal court dockets must always be made available so they can be reviewed by the public since “our criminal courts operate under a presumption of openness,” although it upheld an earlier decision that details included in the arrest warrant can be sealed and remain secret for an extended period.

“Dockets serve many purposes, such as notifying the public of the identity of parties and counsel, as the trial court explained during the hearing,” Superior Court Judge Victor Stabile wrote in the order. “In particular, dockets are a means of notifying the public (and the news media) of upcoming hearing dates.”

The case stems from an appeal brought by three newspapers – the Observer-Reporter, Herald-Standard and Mon Valley Independent – arguing that the court docket for Keven Van Lam should not have been sealed because it left the public with no information about the homicide case. Lam was arrested a day after 49-year-old Boyke Budiarachman was shot to death by an armed assailant Nov. 5, 2022, while walking to his truck parked in the Rostraver Square strip mall.

Lam is accused of hiring a hit man to kill Budiarachman after the two men had a falling-out over a business deal that involved an employment company that hired migrant workers to staff a meat packing plant near Charleroi. Lam, 56, of North Strabane, has a trial date tentatively scheduled for May in Westmoreland County Court of Common Pleas on charges of homicide, criminal solicitation, conspiracy and evidence tampering in connection with the killing.

But none of that information – including Lam’s name and the charges against him – was known after Westmoreland County Judge Christopher Feliciani sealed the case in two separate motions filed in the days after the killing. The three newspapers appealed Feliciani’s sealing order requesting the public docket naming Lam and the charges to be released, but he declined to do so following a Dec. 14, 2022, hearing asking him to reconsider. That left both the media and the public without basic information regarding Budiarachman’s killing.

“In this case, given the absence of a docket, the trial court left (the newspapers) with no means of learning the potential continuance and rescheduling of a preliminary hearing other than directing the prosecutor to provide a courtesy call. And the court left the public at large with no means of monitoring the prosecution of Van Lam,” the state Superior Court wrote in its ruling. “Constitutionally mandated open courtroom proceedings are of little value if the public has no means of learning where and when they will occur, or if the public is entirely unaware that a prosecution is pending.”

The newspapers appealed Feliciani’s ruling to the state Superior Court, which issued a brief decision Feb. 9, 2023, ordering the immediate unsealing of the docket showing the charges Lam was facing and any other judicial information, such as upcoming court hearings.

In its lengthy order released this week, the state Superior Court questioned why Feliciani would keep the criminal docket from public view when the Observer-Reporter and Herald-Standard newspapers had already identified the suspect by reviewing information on the sealed envelope that contained the charges.

“By the time of the December 14, 2022, hearing, local media already had reported that Van Lam was arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of Budiarachman,” the state Superior Court wrote in its order, citing the stories published by the two newspapers on Nov. 16, 2022. “Thus, any desire the Commonwealth had to maintain the secrecy of the victim’s identity and/or Van Lam’s arrest in connection with the shooting had already been thwarted. Given the vital importance of a public docket and the presumption of openness applicable to it, nothing in the record before us supports the trial court’s decision to keep the docket sealed and keep the criminal proceeding against Van Lam entirely walled off from public view.”

But the three-judge panel, which in addition to Stabile also included Judge Alice Beck Dubow and Judge Megan McCarthy King, sided with Feliciani’s decision to keep the arrest warrant and affidavit sealed due to concerns about how the release of details could affect the investigation. The court noted that two other potential co-defendants – the shooter and a person who allegedly coordinated the killing with Lam – have never been identified or arrested.

The appellate court wrote that the state’s Rule 513.1 of Criminal Procedures permits the affidavit of probable cause and other facts to remain sealed until a defendant’s preliminary hearing. The criminal complaint that provided detailed information about the case was released immediately following Lam’s preliminary hearing on Oct. 18 in which District Judge Wayne Vlasic ordered the defendant to stand trial on all charges.

“These circumstances are sufficient to support the temporary sealing of arrest warrant information, as all of them are vitally related to the integrity of the Commonwealth’s investigation, as per the official comment to Rule 513.1,” the appeals court wrote. “As such, the Commonwealth sufficiently overcame the presumption of openness with regards to arrest warrant documents revealing sensitive information pertaining to the underlying investigation.”

But overall, the appellate court determined that the public has a right to know basic details about who is accused of a crime, what charges they’re facing and why they’re being held in the custody of the government.

“A sealed docket violates the First Amendment right of access, a right that can be restricted only based on a compelling interest,” the appellate court wrote.

The newspapers were assisted by attorneys from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which is a nonprofit legal firm based in Washington, D.C.