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The right to public access promises "immediate" and "contemporaneous" access. Lugosch, 435 F.3d at 126. The Second Circuit has firmly held that access does not—and should not—hinge on whether a judge has ruled on the underlying motion. Id. at 126–27. Instead, delay is “effectively a denial” and undermines the benefits of public scrutiny. Id. at 126. In Lugosch, the Second Circuit rejected a request to delay access to pending summary judgment papers. So, too, here Defendant’s request for a delay should be denied.
Juror Questionnaires. The juror questionnaires are judicial documents because they are relevant and useful to the performance of a judicial function: selecting a jury, a necessary component of a criminal trial. Here, the presumptive right to access to these questionnaires is at its apex. In effect, the sealing of the questionnaires is the equivalent of barring the public from the oral voir dire. Defendant’s motion requests a new trial because of alleged juror misconduct—and specifically, that “a juror failed to answer honestly a material question on voir dire.” Dkt. 570. Juror 50’s questionnaires will thus, as Defendant recognizes, id., necessarily and directly affect the Court’s decision on whether the existing finding of guilt should be vacated and whether a new trial is appropriate—fundamental Article III determinations. See Amodeo I, 44 F.3d at 145. The questionnaires for the remaining seated jurors are integral to determining whether this is a lone or recurring incident.
Any original need for sealing the questionnaires for the seated jurors—for instance, that they might be subject to attempts to influence their deliberations—has now passed. The trial is over, and the jurors have been dismissed.
The First Amendment Right of Access
An independent First Amendment right of access attaches where public access to a document has historically been available (the “experience” prong) and would be valuable to the process in question (the “logic” prong). See Press-Enter. Co. v. Superior Ct. of Cal. (“Press-Enterprise II”), 478 U.S. 1, 8–9 (1986); Lugosch, 435 F.3d at 119–20. Once the right attaches, it is overcome only by specific, on-the-record findings that sealing “is essential to preserve higher values and is narrowly tailored to