New Bedford Standard-Times Publishing Co. v. Clerk of the Third District Court

The Third District Court of Bristol (District Court), like many other courts, indexes criminal records chronologically in a daily docket book and alphabetically in a card index of criminal defendants. Pursuant to the Criminal Offender Record Information (CORI) Act, G. L. c. 6, § 172, as amended through St. 1977, c. 841, the chronological index is kept open to the public, but the alphabetical index is not. The plaintiff, a newspaper publisher, challenges the constitutionality of the statute and seeks access to the alphabetical card index. We hold that there has been no violation of the…