What got all the buzz was the appeals court decision that teachers can legally engage in sex with students 18 years or older.

But I found another decision more intriguing. The state Court of Appeals ruled Monday that the Washington Constitution gave chronic truants the right to an attorney at their first juvenile court hearing.

I get that adults and kids both have a right to an attorney, at public expense if necessary, when criminal penalties are involved.

But here's what truants face in their first juvy appearance: a) judges asking why they've been skipping school, and b) possible court orders to get back in school, appear before a community truancy board or submit to drug tests.

Only if a truant blows off the court order might he or she eventually face contempt proceedings – in which case an attorneys is already provided.

Am I missing something? As far as I can tell, the court has decided that kids deserve legal counsel to protect their possible interest in skipping school. Yes, there's the drug testing, but all kinds of juveniles get drug-tested (student-athletes, for example) without a court-appointed attorney.

So ... is mandatory school attendance the legal equivalent of jail time? If so, a lot of kids are going to need lawyers.

This editorial will appear in Friday's print edition.

18-year-olds fair game for sex with teachers?
Close the legal loophole that is letting a Hoquiam teacher off the hook for allegedly having sex with one of his students.

Schoolteachers shouldn’t have sex with students. When they do, they should face criminal charges.

State law isn’t clear enough on that point, according to a Washington Court of Appeals panel that ruled in favor of a schoolteacher accused of having sex with a student. Fortunately, lawmakers who went into legislative session Monday are acting quickly to provide that clarity.

=> Read more!

This editorial will appear in tomorrow's print edition.

The Seattle P-I’s likely disappearance is a shame chiefly because fewer reporters will be breaking fewer stories as a result.

When Johann Gutenberg introduced movable type, he put a lot of scribes out of work. As the Internet has offered alternatives to “old media,” it has put some newspapers out of business. Stuff happens.

The News Tribune is in no threat of going under, but the Post-Intelligencer, one of Seattle’s two daily newspapers, is dying. Unless it finds a buyer quickly – a very unlikely prospect for an enterprise that loses about $14 million a year – it may be dead by spring.

Journalists and many other Americans mourn the loss of a major newspaper, especially one that has published since the 19th century. But newspapers are commercial enterprises, and enterprises do fail in a free economy. Their employees suffer immensely when they are thrown out of work, but so do other workers who lose their jobs.

In a dynamic, wealth-creating economy, there have to be losers if there are to be winners. As businesses, newspapers deserve no extra pity.

What ought to worry people – for the sake of democracy, not newspaper owners – is a net loss of reporting. Thomas Jefferson famously said that, “If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.”

=> Read more!

We shouldn’t sentimentalize the likely loss of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. Businesses fail and industries decline in a dynamic economy. What will be hard to replace is not so much the newspaper as the on-the-street reporters who broke stories. Internet journalism still doesn’t have nearly enough of them to keep democracy healthy.

Is it legal for a teacher to have sex with a student as long as the student is 18 years old? A Washington Court of Appeals panel says yes. Legislators should fix that loophole in state law pronto.

If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.

Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

The oped below will appear in tomorrow's printed opinion section. It's a demand that Judge Michael Hecht personally answer specific accusations that he frequented prostitutes and threatened to harm one of them.

Its significance lies in its source: Sal Mungia, the president-elect of the Washington Bar Association and past president of the Tacoma-Pierce County Bar Association. Six other past presidents of the Pierce County bar (see below) have endorsed it.

Hecht so far has been responding to the allegations through his attorney, Wayne Fricke. Mungia says that's not good enough.

JUDGES CANNOT REMAIN SILENT WHEN ACCUSED OF MISDEEDS THAT AFFECT THEIR ABILITY TO SERVE

Lawyers serve a variety of roles in our society: representing clients, promoting access to the legal system for those who otherwise can’t afford it, and educating the public about the need for a fair and impartial judiciary, among others.

In addition, all lawyers, whether or not they ever appear in a courtroom, are officers of the Court. As officers of the Court, we owe a duty to the legal profession, and more importantly, to the public, to promote the integrity of our courts and to advance the public’s faith that those who literally sit in judgment of their fellow citizens do so with the public’s utmost trust.

Last fall, Pierce County voters elected Michael Hecht to the bench. On January 12, 2009, he was sworn in and he is now preparing to begin his judicial duties. We, as officers of the Court, have a duty to the people of Pierce County to promote the public’s confidence that Judge Hecht has not engaged in conduct that undermines the people’s trust in our court system.

Our role as lawyers is not here to raise issues that are personal to Judge Hecht and that do not pertain to his ability to function as a judge.

What is of interest is whether Judge Hecht has violated the laws of the State of Washington by patronizing prostitutes, or by engaging in sex with minors, or by threatening others with bodily harm if they disclose such activities on his part.

Engaging in any of these acts would severely undermine the public’s faith in Judge Hecht’s ability to fulfill his duties fairly and impartially as a judge. That has already been demonstrated by the Pierce County Prosecutor, Gerald Horne, asking that criminal cases not be assigned to Judge Hecht.

There is a difference between a criminal prosecution and having the public’s confidence – the two are not synonymous. There are a variety of reasons why the Attorney General might decide that charges should not be brought: statute of limitations, lack of corroborating evidence, burden of proof, etc. Whether a public official has criminal charges brought against them should not be the standard to which we hold our elected officials.

As a private citizen, Michael Hecht has every right to not publicly respond to these allegations. As an elected official, however, he owes the public a direct answer to these allegations. If someone accuses a judge of engaging in criminal conduct, we, the public, expect that judge to deny engaging in that conduct if it is unfounded.

=> Read more!