Opinion ID: 479203
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The First Amendment Right of Access

Text: 32 The public's first amendment right of access to judicial proceedings is still in the process of being defined. It was not until 1980 that the Supreme Court first held explicitly that any such right exists. See Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U.S. 555, 564, 100 S.Ct. 2814, 2820, 65 L.Ed.2d 973 (1980). In Richmond Newspapers, the Supreme Court traced the history of public access to criminal trials and examined the role public participation plays in the integrity of the judicial process. The Court said that open criminal trials ensured fairness and checked perjury, misconduct, judicial bias, and partiality. Id. at 569, 100 S.Ct. at 2823. The court also found that open trials have a community therapeutic value, especially in the administration of criminal justice, because they assure the public that the process is fair and just. Id. at 570-71, 100 S.Ct. at 2823-24. 33 This right of access to criminal proceedings is based on the first amendment's guarantees of freedom of speech, press, and assembly. Id. at 575-78, 100 S.Ct. at 2826-28. These expressly guaranteed freedoms share a common core purpose of assuring freedom of communication on matters relating to the functioning of government. Id. at 575, 100 S.Ct. at 2826. The Supreme Court identified two factors as critical to its finding that the public has a presumptive right to attend criminal trials. First, the criminal trial historically has been open to the press and general public. Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 U.S. at 605, 102 S.Ct. at 2619; see also Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U.S. at 564-69, 100 S.Ct. at 2820-23. Second, the right of access to criminal trials plays a particularly significant role in the functioning of the judicial process and the government as a whole. Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 U.S. at 606, 102 S.Ct. at 2619; see also Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U.S. at 569-73, 100 S.Ct. at 2823-25. This right is not absolute; it must be shown that the denial is necessitated by a compelling governmental interest, and is narrowly tailored to serve that interest. Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 U.S. at 607, 102 S.Ct. at 2620. 34 The Supreme Court's discussion in Richmond Newspapers of the history and function of public access to criminal trials has become the framework for subsequent considerations of whether the public has a right of access to other aspects of judicial proceedings. The Supreme Court recently employed this analysis when it recognized a public right of access to voir dire in a criminal trial. See Press-Enterprise Co. v. Superior Court, 464 U.S. 501, 505-10, 104 S.Ct. 819, 821-24, 78 L.Ed.2d 629 (1984). We followed this analysis when we recognized a qualified right of the public to attend bail proceedings, although in that particular case we held that the accused's right to a fair trial and privacy outweighed the public's right of access. In re Globe Newspaper Co., 729 F.2d 47 (1st Cir.1984). Other courts of appeals also have applied this analysis in recognizing a public right of access to criminal pretrial hearings. See, e.g., Associated Press v. United States District Court, 705 F.2d 1143 (9th Cir.1983) (right of access to pretrial criminal documents); United States v. Chagra, 701 F.2d 354 (5th Cir.1983) (right to attend bail reduction hearings); United States v. Brooklier, 685 F.2d 1162 (9th Cir.1982) (right to attend voir dire and pretrial supression hearings); United States v. Criden, 675 F.2d 550 (3d Cir.1982) (right to attend pretrial supression, due process, and entrapment hearings). These cases demonstrate that there is general agreement among the courts that the public's right of access attaches to decisions of major importance to the administration of justice. In re Globe Newspaper Co., 729 F.2d at 52. 35 Several courts have recognized a public right of access to civil as well as criminal trials. See Westmoreland v. Columbia Broadcasting System, Inc., 752 F.2d 16, 22-23 (2d Cir.1984), cert. denied, 472 U.S. 1017, 105 S.Ct. 3478, 87 L.Ed.2d 614 (1985); Publicker Industries, Inc. v. Cohen, 733 F.2d 1059, 1067-71 (3d Cir.1984); Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. v. FTC, 710 F.2d 1165, 1177-79 (6th Cir.1983); see also In the Matter of Continental Illinois Securities Litigation, 732 F.2d at 1308-09 (agreeing with the reasoning of those courts holding that there is a public right of access to civil trials though not specifically recognizing such a right). Other courts, while not explicitly joining those recognizing a right of access to civil trials in general, have recognized a right of access to certain fundamental aspects of civil proceedings. See, e.g., Wilson v. American Motors Corp., 759 F.2d 1568 (11th Cir.1985) (presumptive right of access applied to the trial record). 36 The Second and Seventh Circuits have recognized a right of access to reports considered by a court in ruling on pretrial motions that were dispositive of the litigants' substantive rights. In the Matter of Continental Illinois Securities Litigation, 732 F.2d at 1308-10 (Seventh Circuit); Joy v. North, 692 F.2d at 893 (Second Circuit). These two decisions are particularly relevant here because they recognized a right of public access to at least some pretrial civil proceedings. For our purposes, the facts of both cases are essentially the same. Under state law, plaintiffs' shareholder derivative suits could be terminated by a special litigation committee, formed by the corporation, if the committee determined that it was in the best interest of the corporation to do so. The committee decided that the suit should be dropped and submitted a report in support of this conclusion. The trial court then issued a protective order prohibiting public dissemination of the report. In both cases the courts of appeals reversed. They held that the public had a right to see reports used in determining the litigants' substantive rights. In one case, summary judgment had been entered in favor of the defendants, Joy v. North, 692 F.2d at 884, 894; in the other, the plaintiffs agreed to dismiss the claims against some of the defendants, a result that had the same practical effect as a partial summary judgment, In the Matter of Continental Illinois Securities Litigation, 732 F.2d at 1310. In both cases the courts of appeals held that where the material is important and the decision to which it is relevant amounts to an adjudication of an important substantive right, that material cannot be kept from public scrutiny unless there are exceptional circumstances. 37 We need not decide here whether we agree with those courts extending a right of public access to documents considered in rulings on dispositive pretrial motions; nor need we decide whether there is a public right of access to civil trials in general. Neither of these questions is before us. We think it is clear and hold that there is no right of public access to documents considered in civil discovery motions. In making this determination, we apply the Richmond Newspapers inquiry into whether the proceedings in question historically have been open to the public, and whether access plays a particularly significant role in the functioning of the judicial process. Globe Newspaper Co. v. Superior Court, 457 U.S. at 605-06, 102 S.Ct. at 2619; Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia, 448 U.S. at 564-73, 100 S.Ct. at 2820-25. We conclude that discovery proceedings are fundamentally different from proceedings to which the courts have recognized a public right of access. 38 The pretrial discovery process is a fairly recent invention. See Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495, 500, 67 S.Ct. 385, 388, 91 L.Ed. 451 (1947) (The pre-trial deposition-discovery mechanism ... is one of the most significant innovations of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.) Prior to the enactment of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure in 1938, the parties had no effective means of discovering information and narrowing the issues; in fact, litigants were generally protected against disclosing the facts of their cases. 8 C. Wright & A. Miller, Federal Practice and Procedure Sec. 2001, at 14, Sec. 2002, at 21 (1970). In the days before the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, trial by ambush and secrecy was considered normal in the courts of law. No discovery tools were available to ferret out information about an opponent's claim or defense. M. Pollack, Discovery--Its Abuse and Correction, 80 F.R.D. 219, 220 (1979). There was no tradition of public access to depositions before 1938, and even after the enactment of discovery rules in 1938, most courts required depositions to be sealed. In re Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 773 F.2d at 1337-38; see also Fed.R.Civ.P. 5(d) (courts have the authority not to require the filing of discovery requests and responses). As the Supreme Court itself observed: 39 Even though the draftsmen of the Constitution could not anticipate the 20th-century pretrial proceedings to suppress evidence, pretrial proceedings were not wholly unknown in that day. Written interrogatories were used pretrial in 18th-century litigation, especially in admiralty cases.... Yet, no one ever suggested that there was any right of the public to be present at such pretrial proceedings as were available in that time; until the trial it could not be known whether and to what extent the pretrial evidence would be offered or received. 40 Similarly, during the last 40 years in which the pretrial processes have been enormously expanded, it has never occurred to anyone, so far as I am aware, that a pretrial deposition or pretrial interrogatories were other than wholly private to the litigants. 41 Gannett Co. v. DePasquale, 443 U.S. at 396, 99 S.Ct. at 2913 (Burger, C.J., concurring). 42 Nor does public access to the discovery process play a significant role in the administration of justice. Indeed, if such access were to be mandated, the civil discovery process might actually be made more complicated and burdensome than it already is. In discovery, the parties are given broad range to explore any matter, not privileged, which is relevant to the subject matter involved in the pending action so that they may narrow and clarify the issues and obtain evidence or information leading to the discovery of evidence for future use in the trial. See Fed.R.Civ.P. 26(b)(1); Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. at 501, 67 S.Ct. at 388. The public's interest is in seeing that the process works and the parties are able to explore the issues fully without excessive waste or delay. But rather than facilitate an efficient and complete exploration of the facts and issues, a public right of access would unduly complicate the process. It would require the court to make extensive evidentiary findings whenever a request for access was made, and this could in turn lead to lengthy and expensive interlocutory appeals, just as it did in this case. The Supreme Court declined to apply heightened first amendment scrutiny to requests for protective orders at least in part because of these concerns. See Seattle Times Co., 476 U.S. at 36 n. 23, 104 S.Ct. at 2209 n. 23. 43 Moreover, unlike a motion for summary judgment, to which some courts have recognized a public right of access, see In the Matter of Continental Illinois Securities Litigation, 732 F.2d at 1308-10; Joy v. North, 692 F.2d at 893, a request to compel or protect the disclosure of information in the discovery process is not a request for a disposition of substantive rights. Materials submitted to a court for its consideration of a discovery motion are actually one step further removed in public concern from the trial process than the discovery materials themselves, materials that the Supreme Court has said are not subject to the public's right of access. See Seattle Times Co., 467 U.S. 36-37, 104 S.Ct. at 2209. It would be an odd procedure if a trial court were forced to scrutinize strictly for first amendment implications materials it considers in support of or in opposition to a discovery motion, but it did not have to do so for the information the parties seek to uncover. 44 History and logic lead us to conclude that there is no presumptive first amendment public right of access to documents submitted to a court in connection with discovery motions. Instead, the same good cause standard is to be applied that must be met for protective orders in general. 45