Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ This is a petition for a writ of mandamus to direct the judges and clerk of the district court for the district of Massachusetts to allow the petitioner access to depositions and exhibits on file in a certain case, but now sealed by order of the court. ”

“ So long as the object physically exists, anyone needing it as evidence at a trial has a right to call for it, unless some exception is shown to the general rule. We discover none here. Neither the parties to the original cause nor the deponents have any privilege, and the mere unwillingness of an unprivileged person to have the evidence used cannot be strengthened by such a judicial fiat as this, forbidding it, however proper and effective the sealing may have been as against the public at large. ”

“ The right to evidence to be obtained from an existing object does not depend upon having an interest in it, or, in a case like this, upon having an interest in the original cause, or upon the object being admissible or inadmissible in the cause for which it was prepared, or upon the right or want of right of the public to examine the thing. ”