Souter Blocks Access to His Papers for 50 Years

The New Hampshire Historical Society has announced that retired Supreme Court Justice David Souter is donating his personal and professional papers to the society. But don't book travel to New Hampshire quite yet to take a peek; Souter has placed an extraordinarily long restriction on public access to his papers, barring anyone -- researchers, historians, friends, journalists -- from viewing the material for 50 years. That's a lengthier seal than any justice has placed on papers in recent memory.

The unusually severe bar on access is surprising in one sense, but very Souter-esque in another. Souter is an avid historian -- in fact joining the board of trustees of the New Hampshire Historical Society as part of the announcement of his decision to donate his papers there. He knows well the "call of history," the obligation of historical figures and public officials to help flesh out the how and why of important events.

But Souter is also an intensely private person, especially protective of the Supreme Court on which he served for 19 years. He was a lifelong diarist and may have decided that his files were too sensitive to be made public while any of his colleagues or many of his law clerks are still alive. Other justices have solved similar issues by making some segments of their papers available earlier, others later.

"I would have been surprised by anything under 25 years," said University of Cambridge lecturer David Garrow, a Court historian who has written extensively about Souter. "I guess I would have hoped for 25. But, given his diary keeping (though we don't know for sure whether or to what extent he continued that at the Supreme Court) I could imagine him wanting to believe, for instance, that pretty much all his clerks would be gone by the time that everything came open."

http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202433362116&pos=ataglance

A lot of stuff from the fifties or sixties across the world is only recently coming to light, and there's some real eye-openers every time a few more boxes are opened.

Frankly, I'd rather just burn it. If you think your personal materials have any significant value, then share it with at least some of the same people who paid your salary and who lived with the results of your court decisions. Frankly, I find this monstrously pretentious.

Like it or not, his personal papers are his personal papers, and I couldn't really challenge his right to impose release conditions on them after giving them to archives any more than I would challenge your right to. It's annoying, particularly to archivists, but a delay of that length is more common overall than the article suggests, especially when governments are getting involved.

The professional ones, on the other hand, irk me, but my reaction there would depend more on what they were. Most of the ones involved with court decisions would likely end up with the court's archives anyway.