Roberts Led 2016 Push to Seal Supreme Court Papers After Scalia Left No Archive Plan
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · Sep 1
Roberts Led 2016 Push to Seal Supreme Court Papers After Scalia Left No Archive Plan
1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · Sep 1
Summary
Private memos and conference meetings after Antonin Scalia’s 2016 death show Chief Justice John Roberts led talks on imposing a more uniform seal on justices’ papers, according to people familiar with the process.
Scalia had left no instructions for his working papers—five people said—raising fears that a key record of his work and the court’s internal history could be lost or released too quickly.
Those previously unreported discussions underscore that each justice controls his or her papers as personal property, with no law dictating what must be saved, destroyed or eventually disclosed.
That system helps explain why the Supreme Court remains unusually opaque compared with the executive branch, which is required to preserve records and ultimately make them public.