The Volokh Conspiracy
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Justice Souter's Papers Will Be Available In The Year 2075
The Justice was "emphatic" that his papers would be available only fifty years after his death.
Today the Supreme Court announced that Justice David H. Souter passed away at his home in New Hampshire. I expect there will be many remembrances of the Justice. But today does mark something of a countdown.
In 2015, Justice Souter told my colleague Gerard Magliocca that his papers would become available fifty years after his death:
"I have given such papers as I've retained to the New Hampshire Historical Society, to be opened for inspection after the 50th anniversary of my death. By that time, they will be of interest only to the historians taking the long view."
Tony Mauro offered more details at the defunct Blog of the Legal Times:
Bill Veillette, the historical society's executive director in 2009, also confirmed on Wednesday that Souter's wish all along was for release of his papers 50 years after his death, not his retirement.
"He was very emphatic about it," Veillette recalled. "He told me, 'I've got an incinerator outside my house, and either you agree to 50 years after my death, or they go into the incinerator.'" Since many papers are donated by families decades or centuries after a notable person's death, Veillette said Souter's 50-year delay seemed relatively brief. Veillette is now the executive director of the Northeast Document Conservation Center in Massachusetts.
(I miss BLT.)
Start the clock. Souter's papers will be available at the earliest in the year 2075--just in time for the Tricentennial. If I am still on planet earth then, I would be about 90 years old. I am skeptical anyone in the year 2075 will have much interest in those papers, as all of Souter's other colleagues will have likely released their papers by then.
