AURORA | Lawyers for Sir Mario Owens — who sits on death row for gunning down a murder witness and the witness’ fiancee in 2005 — are asking the state’s highest court to unseal court documents that have been kept secret since 2007.

“As a parent I ask and beg you to allow Mario’s family to see the papers and transcripts that explain why our son is on death row,” Owens’ mother Monica Owens wrote to the court in asking for the end of the gag order.

Lawyers handling Owens’ appeal say rules instituted during Owens’ trial, including some that make it hard for the public and Owens’ lawyers to get information about the case, should be lifted. The lawyers filed a motion with the Colorado Supreme Court last month asking it to over rule a district court ruling that said the information should remain sealed.

“The district court’s refusal to vacate its sealing and redaction orders ensures for all practical purposes that the official record and transcripts of these capital proceedings will remain closed and sealed from public inspection, and thus public scrutiny, for many years to come, resulting in irreparable constitutional harm and the erosion of public confidence in the integrity of the criminal justice system,” the lawyers wrote.

James Castle, one of Owens’ lawyers, said he couldn’t comment on the pleading this week because the defense isn’t sure whether the 2007 gag order barring them from speaking publicly still applies.

Owens was convicted in 2008 of killing Javad Marshall-Fields and Vivian Wolfe in a drive-by shooting in Aurora in 2005. Marshall-Fields, who had recently graduated from college, was set to testify against Owens’ friend and drug dealing partner, Robert Ray, in a 2004 fatal shooting at Lowry Park. In the Lowry Park shooting, police say Owens killed Gregory Vann after a dispute at a Fourth of July picnic and Ray wounded two other men.

Police didn’t identify Owens as a suspect in either case until linking his DNA to a hat found at the scene of the Marshall-Fields and Wofle slayings. He was later convicted at separate trials of killing Vann and later of killing Marshall-Fields and Wolfe.

Like Owens, Ray was convicted and sentenced to murder for Marshall-Fields and Wolfe’s slayings.

Because the case involved the murder of a witness, court officials have been particularly careful about what details the public had access to. The trial and sentencing phase were open to the public, but a gag order barred police, prosecutors and the defense from talking to the press about the case.

In their motion, Owens’ lawyers said those restrictions should be lifted, especially considering the debate currently swirling around the death penalty in Colorado.

The motion also said even Owens’ family has been barred from accessing details about the case.

Owens’ mother wrote. “That is fair and right, and just and I believe you are a fair and just man.”