Since the "state" of a LifeCycleManaged object is an EnumeratedType, the appropriate SearchCondition constructor has the following signature:

SearchCondition(Class, String, String, EnumeratedType)

The following example Java code constructs a QuerySpec to search for 
WTDocument instances in the "In Work" life cycle state -- assuming the default locale 
is US English and the default definitions in 

StateRB.java (line 5 should be modified to select the Locale appropriately for the application):

wt.query.QuerySpec qs = new wt.query.QuerySpec(wt.doc.WTDocument.class);
java.util.Hashtable states = new java.util.Hashtable();

wt.lifecycle.State[] stateArray = wt.lifecycle.LifeCycleHelper.service.allStates();

for (int i = 0; i < stateArray.length; i++)
states.put(stateArray[i].getDisplay(java.util.Locale.getDefault()), stateArray[i]);

qs.appendSearchCondition(new wt.query.SearchCondition(wt.doc.WTDocument.class, wt.doc.WTDocument.LIFE_CYCLE_STATE, wt.query.SearchCondition.EQUAL, (wt.lifecycle.State)states.get("In Work")));