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

Heading: The Common Law Presumption of Public Access

Text: 46 The Globe also argues that it has a common law right of access to the documents submitted to the court for its ruling on the discovery motions. There is a long-standing presumption in the common law that the public may inspect judicial records. Nixon v. Warner Communications, Inc., 435 U.S. 589, 597, 98 S.Ct. 1306, 1311, 55 L.Ed.2d 570 (1978); McCoy v. Providence Journal Co., 190 F.2d at 764-65. This presumption is more easily overcome than the constitutional right of access; when the first amendment is not implicated, the decision as to access is one best left to the sound discretion of the trial court, a discretion to be exercised in light of the relevant facts and circumstances of the particular case. Nixon v. Warner Communications, Inc., 435 U.S. at 599, 98 S.Ct. at 1312; In re Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 773 F.2d at 1340 (trial court's eminently reasonable action unquestionably lawful [i]n the absence of some overriding constitutional command to provide access); cf. McCoy v. Providence Journal Co., 190 F.2d at 765 ([t]raditionally, courts have exercised the power to impound their records when circumstances warranted such action). 47 The common law presumption that the public may inspect judicial records has been the foundation on which the courts have based the first amendment right of access to judicial proceedings. It is therefore not surprising that, like the constitutional right of access, the common law presumption does not encompass discovery materials. The courts have not extended it beyond materials on which a court relies in determining the litigants' substantive rights. See In re Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, 773 F.2d at 1340, 1342 n. 3 (Scalia, J., writing for the District of Columbia Circuit, and Wright, J., dissenting, agree that the common law presumption does not go beyond evidentiary materials used in determining the litigants' substantive rights). And as we already have determined, discovery is fundamentally different from those proceedings for which a public right of access has been recognized. There is no tradition of public access to discovery, and requiring a trial court to scrutinize carefully public claims of access would be incongruous with the goals of the discovery process. In view of these conclusions, we decline to extend to materials used only in discovery the common law presumption that the public may inspect judicial records.