Commonwealth v. Chism

Summary

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court held that a video recording and transcript admitted or marked during a suppression hearing are judicial records subject to a rebuttable presumption of public access. The court concluded that the Superior Court judge properly applied the good-cause standard for impoundment and did not abuse his discretion in weighing public access against the defendant's right to a fair and impartial jury. The court also noted that an order prohibiting duplication of the materials remained in effect and was not before it on appeal.

Holdings

1. A recording admitted in evidence at a suppression hearing and a transcript marked for identification are judicial records. The later suppression of the statements, and their resulting inadmissibility at trial, does not remove them from the category of judicial records once they were admitted or marked in the suppression proceeding.
2. A motion to impound presumptively public judicial records is governed by the good-cause standard in Rule 7(b) of the Uniform Rules on Impoundment Procedure, not by the four-part strict-scrutiny test applicable when a party seeks to close a courtroom to the public.
3. The Superior Court judge did not abuse his discretion in denying impoundment because he properly balanced the public's presumptive access to judicial records against the defendant's right to a fair and impartial jury and subsequently prohibited duplication of the recording and transcript.
4. An order prohibiting duplication of an otherwise publicly accessible judicial record is a variant of an impoundment order requiring good cause, but the showing may be consistent with the lesser intrusion on public access.

Questions Presented

1. Whether a video recording admitted into evidence at a suppression hearing and its transcript, marked for identification, are judicial records subject to a presumptive common-law right of public access even though the statements were later suppressed and would be inadmissible at trial.
2. Whether the good-cause standard under the Uniform Rules on Impoundment Procedure, rather than the strict-scrutiny standard governing closure of a courtroom, applies to a motion to impound those judicial records.
3. Whether the Superior Court judge abused his discretion by denying impoundment after balancing public access against the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to a fair and impartial jury, particularly where the judge subsequently prohibited duplication of the recording and transcript.

Disposition

remanded