Newsday LLC v. County of Nassau

GERARD E. LYNCH, Circuit Judge:

This appeal stems from ongoing attempts by various news organizations to gain access to sealed court proceedings, transcripts, and discovery documents. Their marked persistence in pursuing the matter is a result of the public interest in the underlying, and now-settled, civil suit that generated the civil contempt action that was the focus of the constitutional right-of-access claims that face us on appeal. Despite this complex posture, the questions this appeal presents are straightforward. First, does the First Amendment’s presumptive right of access to court…