PROVIDENCE — The Providence Journal yesterday told the Rhode Island Supreme Court that the public should be able to see written questions during jury selection just as if the same questions had been asked out loud in open court.

The time-saving nature of the questionnaires should not be used to shut the public out from the jury-selection process, Journal lawyer Kristin E. Rodgers told the court.

The newspaper is seeking questionnaires filled out by 421 potential jurors in 2006 as one of the brothers who owned the Station nightclub faced manslaughter charges after the 2003 fire in the West Warwick nightclub that killed 100 people.

Superior Court Judge Francis J. Darigan Jr. used the 32-page questionnaire to speed up jury selection in the trial of Michael A. Derderian. After potential jurors filled out questionnaires, but before jury selection resumed in open court, Derderian and his brother, Jeffrey A. Derderian, pleaded no contest, and the trial was halted before a jury was seated.

After the Derderians entered their pleas, the Journal petitioned Darigan to release the questionnaires. The judge provided a blank copy of the form, but rejected the paper’s request for the completed questionnaires, prompting the appeal to the Supreme Court.

Rebecca Tedford Partington, a lawyer for the state, yesterday told the justices that making the questionnaires public would invade the privacy of jurors and their friends and families. That, she said, would make it hard to find jurors in the future and could lead those who do respond to a summons for jury duty to be less than candid in filling out questionnaires.

The public’s right to attend jury selection in open court is settled law. In a 1984 opinion, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the public is presumed to have the right to watch jury selection, as long as the trial court provides a mechanism for jurors to privately answer questions that are sensitive or personal.

The Journal contended that the written questionnaires should be treated the same as jury selection in open court.

The questionnaire used in The Station case had a mechanism for jurors to answer questions privately. The instructions on the first page warned jurors that their answers were not confidential. They went on to say that, if jurors did not want to answer a question, they should write the word “PRIVATE” in the space for the answer and circle the entire question. The instructions said that the court might then privately ask about the question, though the proceedings never reached that stage.

Partington argued yesterday that some jurors, despite the written instructions, provided highly personal information on the questionnaire. That was due, in part, she said to a pledge Darigan made to jurors when handing out the questionnaires. He said he would do everything he could to keep the questionnaires private, though he warned jurors it was beyond his power to prevent the Supreme Court from one day making them public.

Partington and Rodgers sparred with the justices over whether the Supreme Court should even hear the newspaper’s appeal and whether jury selection had actually begun.

Appellate courts generally decline to rule when their decision won’t affect the case that prompted the appeal.

Because the Derderian cases ended when the brothers entered pleas, Partington argued the Supreme Court should reject the Journal’s appeal without even considering the substance of the case. “This unique case, this horrible case, is over,” she said.

But Rodgers argued that the court should apply an exception for cases that could keep coming up but would be finished before the Supreme Court got involved.

“Well, it’s going to come up again,” Chief Justice Frank J. Williams noted when Partington asked the court to reject the Journal’s appeal.

As to whether jury selection had begun, Rodgers noted that lawyers in the Derderian case had notified Darigan they planned to ask him to exclude 140 potential jurors based on what was in the questionnaires. “That’s the very essence of jury selection,” Rodgers said.

But Partington said the fact that Darigan never acted on those 140 jurors means that jury selection had not begun, that the questionnaires had not yet played a role in court proceedings. “They played a role to counsel, but not to the court,” she said.

In summing up, Partington said the possibility that reporters would track down jurors to question them about how they filled out the forms was good enough reason to make sure the public never sees the questionnaires.

Rodgers argued that public trials, from their earliest moments, promote justice. “Openness enhances, rather than hinders, the right to a fair trial.”

The justices did not say when they expect to rule, though it typically takes several months.

pparker@projo.com