
US Supreme Court will require electronic filings and post them free online - scott00
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2017/08/03/the-supreme-court-has-finally-embraced-the-21st-century/
======
avs733
This seems like an unmitigated good. The law, in all forms, should be freely
and publicly accessible[1].

Part of me struggles with the abject misunderstandings about law I see in both
the media and the public...legal jargon and process are inherently
dense/anachronistic. That being said, this seems like an opportunity both for
SCOTUS to role model transparency and to try and shorten the process by which
the interpretation of the sacred texts are communicated to the people.

[1] this includes things like building codes and professional standards which
while legally in the public domain are still claimed as copyright and sold by
organizations like the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. The EFF has
some resources on this: [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/law-belongs-
public-dom...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/law-belongs-public-
domain)

~~~
wahern

      This seems like an unmitigated good.
    

I agree that this material should be freely accessible. But I don't think it
will result in unmitigated good. It will add fuel to the fire of academic
legal discourse, which has been an increasingly destabilizing influence that
has contributed to the politicalization and polarization of legal discourse
and broader social discourse.

We'll soon see dozens, perhaps hundreds of academic papers purporting to apply
statistical analysis and machine learning techniques to this new fount of
material. This "data" will be used to support whatever pet theories the
academics have concocted. Rather than make the law less opaque to the
citizenry, this junk science will become fodder for broader social and
political commentary.

Maybe improved access to the new filings will makes things better overall.
Maybe the resulting fodder will make things worse overall. More than likely
we'll just end up in a much more complex world heading down the same road we
would have otherwise. In any event, I wouldn't call this unmitigated.

Note that my criticism is largely predicated on the fact that this is Supreme
Court material. Neither academics nor social pundits have yet figured out how
to mine prosaic material like building codes.[1] I wouldn't rule it out, but
consider that this more prosaic material has at least as much raw substance as
Supreme Court filings. The SCOTUS filings will be abused because of the
meaning we imbue. You'll know all the academic papers coming out in the next
few years will be bollocks precisely because, relatively speaking, these
filings don't add much new substance overall. At best we should only expect
this new accessibility to help budding Supreme Court litigators and other
similarly niche domains. For more abstract domains the new material shouldn't
move the needle; but it doubtlessly will.

[1] To be sure, there are papers that do mine this material. Their relative
paucity is probably a testament to their quality.

~~~
eli
Having access to raw data is bad because people could intentionally
misinterpret it?

~~~
MaulingMonkey
That's one way to misinterpret what wahern is saying ;)

Having access to raw data is not an _unmitigated good_ because people could
(and will) intentionally misinterpret it.

It might be still be _good_ on the balance - but there will be a variety of
other consequences, good and bad, intended and unintended. Wahern's point
seems to be more that it's far too early to call what the balance of all those
consequences might be, and that it's not even a given that they'll be more
good than bad - nevermind to make the leap to assume they'll _all_ be good.

Cheaper than ever, barrier-free communication across the globe has it's
advantages, for example - but this also leads to spammers and robocallers.
I've wondered if some kind of small cost increase per call or email would help
keep such things in better check.

~~~
tenebrisalietum
[http://imgur.com/a/LbARM](http://imgur.com/a/LbARM)

~~~
MaulingMonkey
"In better check", not "solve", for many reasons. And "wondered if", not
"attempted to impose", for many of the same.

------
k-mcgrady
OT: The Supreme Court in the UK has a YouTube channel [1] where videos of
judgements are posted (usually very soon after they take place). I'd be
interested to know if the SCOTUS has a similar service. I can't find it on
YouTube but maybe they can be accessed elsewhere?

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/user/UKSupremeCourt](https://www.youtube.com/user/UKSupremeCourt)

Edit:

Thanks to the below commenters.

~~~
xythian
SCOTUS somewhat famously only allows audio recordings of proceedings.

[https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio/2...](https://www.supremecourt.gov/oral_arguments/argument_audio/2016)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/03/case-
al...](https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2013/03/case-allowing-
cameras-supreme-court-proceedings/316876/)

~~~
DINKDINK
Point for debate: Between the extremes of transparency and commodification
where should we strike the publication balance?

e.g. If an organization/individual has ulterior motives (of fears) for
testifying in a case other than the limited outcome of the legal question, it
has the ability to sway their testimony.

------
piker
While this idea seems great, requiring court staff to submit pro se litigants'
petitions may be a non-trivial burden. Something like 40% of federal appellate
work is responding to (often meritless, often incomprehensible) pro se habeas
petitions[0]. I wonder if a side effect of this is additional legislation
intended to dampen that burden[1] at the expense of real human liberty. I hope
not, but we should balance this issue and be cautious about chilling less
fortunate peoples' access to these basic civil mechanisms.

[0]
[http://www.lclark.edu/live/files/777](http://www.lclark.edu/live/files/777)
[1] See, e.g.,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiterrorism_and_Effective_De...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiterrorism_and_Effective_Death_Penalty_Act_of_1996)

~~~
perpetualcrayon
I get the feeling that (if I understand this correctly) maybe by putting the
petitions out into the open for the world to see (by making it easy for anyone
to review online) will cut down on the meritless petitions. After all, it's
one thing to throw shit against a wall to see if it will stick (especially if
it's a wall in DC that very few people ever look at), and an entirely
different thing to throw shit against every wall in the entire US to see if it
will stick, and not come out looking like a complete jackass.

------
clamprecht
What will pro se prisoners do? I assume there's some provision for that. If
not, they can't even appeal the rule itself!

~~~
burkaman
> Parties representing themselves will have their filings uploaded by the
> court's staff.

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kevin_thibedeau
So SCOTUS runs its own system and the rest of the federal courts lock their
public records behind the PACER paywall. Very consistent.

~~~
Larrikin
Its crazy to me that it is legal for there to be a regular fee for viewing a
website per view.

