From NYT Copyright New York Times Company Apr 14, 1995 By The New York Times The state's highest court has rejected a plea by the widow of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to regain control of her husband's papers from Boston University. In the ruling on Wednesday, the justices of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court unanimously upheld a 1993 jury decision that declared Boston University the rightful owner of the papers based on a letter from Dr. King to the university's library dated July 16, 1964. In the letter, Dr. King named the university "the Repository of my correspondence" and wrote: "In the event of my death, all such material deposited with the University shall become from that date the absolute property of Boston University." The papers, about 83,000 documents, including about a third of Dr. King's personal letters and manuscripts, were delivered to the university in July 1964. Dr. King was assassinated in April 1968. His widow, Coretta Scott King, sued the university in December 1987 to reclaim the documents, contending that Dr. King left them at the university, where earned a doctorate in theology, for temporary safekeeping. At the trial here in 1993, Mrs. King testified that her husband had intended to find a permanent place for the papers in the South. She said she hoped to move them to the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change in Atlanta. A jury ruled that the 1964 letter was legally binding and that the university could keep the collection, which is the crown jewel of its archives in Mugar Memorial Library. In an appeal, Mrs. King's lawyers argued that the case should not have been decided by jury. The Supreme Judicial Court disagreed. In the court's decision, Justice Joseph R. Nolan wrote that the case was "properly submitted to the jury." In a statement issued through her Atlanta lawyer, Archer D. Smith 3d, Mrs. King called the decision "tragic" and said she was considering an appeal to the United States Supreme Court "or other appropriate courts." Lawrence S. Elswit, a lawyer for Boston University, said he was confident that the case was closed. A posting from the Archives & Archivists LISTSERV List sponsored by the Society of American Archivists, www.archivists.org. For the terms of participation, please refer to http://www.archivists.org/listservs/arch_listserv_terms.asp. To subscribe or unsubscribe, send e-mail to [log in to unmask] In body of message: SUB ARCHIVES firstname lastname *or*: UNSUB ARCHIVES To post a message, send e-mail to [log in to unmask] Or to do *anything* (and enjoy doing it!), use the web interface at http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/archives.html Problems? Send e-mail to Robert F Schmidt <[log in to unmask]>