7 ms·

Good work by the WaPo for getting to the bottom of this. This shows an important reason why court proceedings should be openly accessible at scale. Lawyers can

by tlb 10y ago

Good work by the WaPo for getting to the bottom of this. This shows an important reason why court proceedings should be openly accessible at scale. Lawyers can spread legal DOS attacks out across jurisdictions, where individual judges would have a hard time discovering the pattern. Allowing citizens to do large scale pattern matching will uncover such things.

rayiner 10y ago
That's a desirable goal, but hard to achieve. In the US, courts aren't just an administrative unit of government, like the DMV. They're an independent branch of government, organized as a distributed system. Individual courts have their own jurisdiction and are largely self-managed. As a result, there isn't really anyone who can tell even all the federal courts, much less the state ones, to all plug into a central electronic filing system. Indeed, even though the federal courts all use the PACER software, each court actually maintains it's own system.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  > As a result, there isn't really anyone who can tell even all the federal courts, much less the state ones, to all plug into a central electronic filing system. Congress can, in fact, do that for federal courts; as for state courts, its true that there is no one body that can, but Congress has been very successful in the past at getting fairly good national compliance with programs that are outside of its ability to mandate by setting rules and providing implementation and maintenance funds to states who choose to follow the rules; there's no reason why this couldn't work with court record systems.
  - rayiner 10y ago
    I didn't say it was impossible, just hard to achieve. I think getting an act of Congress (in an area where Congress historically has been loathe to legislate) qualifies.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago
      > I didn't say it was impossible, just hard to achieve. No, you said there was no one who can do it -- more specifially, you said that, as a result of the organizational structure of the US government, "there isn't really anyone who can tell even all the federal courts, much less the state ones, to all plug into a central electronic filing system." In point of fact, there is someone who can tell the federal courts to do that, and while they can't actually tell the state courts to, they have a lever that they've been quite adept at using at the past that would likely get at least most state courts to comply were they to choose to. Now, you can shift to arguing that the entity who could act has a historic lack of will in this area, but that's a very different argument than the absence of an entity with capacity to act.
      - rayiner 10y ago
        > No, you said there was no one who can do it -- more specifially, you said that, as a result of the organizational structure of the US government, "there isn't really anyone who can tell even all the federal courts, much less the state ones, to all plug into a central electronic filing system." I think that's an accurate statement. There is no central administrative authority over the U.S. courts.[1] The chief judges of the courts are responsible for their administration, and the Administrative Office of the Courts serves a policymaking/support role. So there is no "CTO" that can impose a judiciary-wide IT policy like moving to a single electronic filing system. That's why every single court has a different website, runs a different PACER version, etc. Sure, Congress can exercise its legislative powers to impose such a policy, but it can do lots of things that way. [1] I don't know what authority Congress Constitutionally has over court administration. Apparently, before reforms in the 1930s, courts were administered through the executive branch.
- morninj 10y ago
  You can, in fact, search dockets on PACER across jurisdictions. The barrier isn't centralization; the barrier is that it costs $0.10 per page to view documents and search results.[0] [0] https://www.wired.com/2016/05/problem-feds-profiting-off-court-proceedings/ https://www.wired.com/2016/05/problem-feds-profiting-off-cou...
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - Robin_Message 10y ago
    It was 2008 when Aaron Swartz starting trying to free those public documents. A shame there doesn't seem to have been any progress.
stcredzero 10y ago
The courts, justice system, and police are horrible by the standards of information access in the 21st century. If you are a victim in an incident, do you know how long it takes to get a copy of the police report? 10 business days. So it's entirely possible that someone who has a hearing for a restraining order, who may not realize that it may be in their interest to have a copy, to be caught flat-footed. And the personal experience of getting it may well be pretty bad as well. The clerk seems to talk to you like you're some scum -- as if you were the perpetrator. (And yes, I was polite, and yes, she knew I was the victim.) The reason for the delay -- they have to redact the private information of the assailant. How in the world does that take them 10 days? On top of all that, they insist that you bring correct change. Also, you will note that there is the typical bureaucratic nonchalance bordering on hostility in the lack of customer service. No attempt at greeting or showing you are noticed or matter in any way. No air of politeness, but even an undertone of contempt -- and that's being perhaps way too charitable. My overwhelming suspicion -- as someone who went to an Ivy League school -- is that I was being treated as "yet another brown person," and that if one of my classmates with a different appearance was present, they would have been treated differently. (Though they still would have had to wait 10 days to get a redacted copy of a sheaf of papers.) And that's just one example. Such horribleness is all over those systems. I had a hearing get moved 40 miles away -- apparently en-masse because of a computer system change -- with no notification to myself or my lawyer. I didn't even find out about that until we showed up. Sure, the US system is fantastic compared to other places in the world and justice during the middle ages. However, there's still a lot to it that's horrible. EDIT: The takeaway from this article, my experience, and from many accounts of the justice system in the US, is that it is good on the large contexts of the world and history. However, it's still capable of cruel and arbitrary effects that run drastically counter to reality. Many of these effects come as myriad little "bites" or as if one is fighting a current. And the direction of these effects is strongly influenced by perceived socioeconomic status and race. This is still not up to the point of "good governance."
- Fiahil 10y ago
  > My overwhelming suspicion -- as someone who went to an Ivy League school -- is that I was being treated as "yet another brown person," Isn't that the way it's supposed to be? It's an old concept: In the eyes of the law, people don't get special treatment depending on their social status.
conistonwater 10y ago
I don't think it's technically the WaPo, because it's posted on a collaborative blog (marked opinion), so it's probably a personal initiative of Volokh (a law professor) and Levy (an attorney). See also http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/10/10/a-tip-of-the-hat-to-matthew-chan-whose-call-helped-us-uncover-the-many-suspicious-internet-takedown-cases/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016... for how it started.
- mozumder 10y ago
  That's where the tip started, but this excellent work wouldn't have happened without the Washington Post funding the blog itself.
  - conistonwater 10y ago
    Are you sure WaPo is funding them at all, not just hosting? It says here (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/about/?utm_term=.3338b53cb7b1 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/about/...) they are mostly law professors who write for themselves and retain their own editorial control. It used to be an independently hosted blog for a very long time too. That's why I said I think they did it on their own (nothing wrong with that sort of thing).
    - burkaman 10y ago
      > We are sharing advertising revenue with the Post, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be much. Our hourly rate for our blogging time will remain pretty pathetic. We’re not in it for the money; if we were, we’d be writing briefs, not blog posts. - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/01/21/in-brazil-you-can-always-find-the-amazon-in-america-the-amazon-finds-you-2/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201... Sounds like this probably would have happened with or without the Post.
      - delbel 10y ago
        Good because WaPo is not a reputable source of information.
CalRobert 10y ago
There is work being done on this. Both in terms of access to court opinions (which ought to be free but are often obscured via bureaucracy) and materials for people interested in learning about the law. https://free.law/ https://free.law/ https://github.com/freelawproject/courtlistener https://github.com/freelawproject/courtlistener https://www.courtlistener.com/ https://www.courtlistener.com/ Disclaimer: While I have no affiliation with this project, I am friends and former roommates of the Free Law Project's Director.

by tlb 10y ago

rayiner 10y ago

That's a desirable goal, but hard to achieve. In the US, courts aren't just an administrative unit of government, like the DMV. They're an independent branch of government, organized as a distributed system. Individual courts have their own jurisdiction and are largely self-managed. As a result, there isn't really anyone who can tell even all the federal courts, much less the state ones, to all plug into a central electronic filing system. Indeed, even though the federal courts all use the PACER software, each court actually maintains it's own system.

dragonwriter 10y ago
> As a result, there isn't really anyone who can tell even all the federal courts, much less the state ones, to all plug into a central electronic filing system. Congress can, in fact, do that for federal courts; as for state courts, its true that there is no one body that can, but Congress has been very successful in the past at getting fairly good national compliance with programs that are outside of its ability to mandate by setting rules and providing implementation and maintenance funds to states who choose to follow the rules; there's no reason why this couldn't work with court record systems.
- rayiner 10y ago
  I didn't say it was impossible, just hard to achieve. I think getting an act of Congress (in an area where Congress historically has been loathe to legislate) qualifies.
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    > I didn't say it was impossible, just hard to achieve. No, you said there was no one who can do it -- more specifially, you said that, as a result of the organizational structure of the US government, "there isn't really anyone who can tell even all the federal courts, much less the state ones, to all plug into a central electronic filing system." In point of fact, there is someone who can tell the federal courts to do that, and while they can't actually tell the state courts to, they have a lever that they've been quite adept at using at the past that would likely get at least most state courts to comply were they to choose to. Now, you can shift to arguing that the entity who could act has a historic lack of will in this area, but that's a very different argument than the absence of an entity with capacity to act.
    - rayiner 10y ago
      > No, you said there was no one who can do it -- more specifially, you said that, as a result of the organizational structure of the US government, "there isn't really anyone who can tell even all the federal courts, much less the state ones, to all plug into a central electronic filing system." I think that's an accurate statement. There is no central administrative authority over the U.S. courts.[1] The chief judges of the courts are responsible for their administration, and the Administrative Office of the Courts serves a policymaking/support role. So there is no "CTO" that can impose a judiciary-wide IT policy like moving to a single electronic filing system. That's why every single court has a different website, runs a different PACER version, etc. Sure, Congress can exercise its legislative powers to impose such a policy, but it can do lots of things that way. [1] I don't know what authority Congress Constitutionally has over court administration. Apparently, before reforms in the 1930s, courts were administered through the executive branch.
morninj 10y ago
You can, in fact, search dockets on PACER across jurisdictions. The barrier isn't centralization; the barrier is that it costs $0.10 per page to view documents and search results.[0] [0] https://www.wired.com/2016/05/problem-feds-profiting-off-court-proceedings/ https://www.wired.com/2016/05/problem-feds-profiting-off-cou...
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- Robin_Message 10y ago
  It was 2008 when Aaron Swartz starting trying to free those public documents. A shame there doesn't seem to have been any progress.

stcredzero 10y ago

The courts, justice system, and police are horrible by the standards of information access in the 21st century. If you are a victim in an incident, do you know how long it takes to get a copy of the police report? 10 business days. So it's entirely possible that someone who has a hearing for a restraining order, who may not realize that it may be in their interest to have a copy, to be caught flat-footed. And the personal experience of getting it may well be pretty bad as well. The clerk seems to talk to you like you're some scum -- as if you were the perpetrator. (And yes, I was polite, and yes, she knew I was the victim.) The reason for the delay -- they have to redact the private information of the assailant. How in the world does that take them 10 days? On top of all that, they insist that you bring correct change. Also, you will note that there is the typical bureaucratic nonchalance bordering on hostility in the lack of customer service. No attempt at greeting or showing you are noticed or matter in any way. No air of politeness, but even an undertone of contempt -- and that's being perhaps way too charitable. My overwhelming suspicion -- as someone who went to an Ivy League school -- is that I was being treated as "yet another brown person," and that if one of my classmates with a different appearance was present, they would have been treated differently. (Though they still would have had to wait 10 days to get a redacted copy of a sheaf of papers.) And that's just one example. Such horribleness is all over those systems. I had a hearing get moved 40 miles away -- apparently en-masse because of a computer system change -- with no notification to myself or my lawyer. I didn't even find out about that until we showed up. Sure, the US system is fantastic compared to other places in the world and justice during the middle ages. However, there's still a lot to it that's horrible. EDIT: The takeaway from this article, my experience, and from many accounts of the justice system in the US, is that it is good on the large contexts of the world and history. However, it's still capable of cruel and arbitrary effects that run drastically counter to reality. Many of these effects come as myriad little "bites" or as if one is fighting a current. And the direction of these effects is strongly influenced by perceived socioeconomic status and race. This is still not up to the point of "good governance."

Fiahil 10y ago
> My overwhelming suspicion -- as someone who went to an Ivy League school -- is that I was being treated as "yet another brown person," Isn't that the way it's supposed to be? It's an old concept: In the eyes of the law, people don't get special treatment depending on their social status.

conistonwater 10y ago

I don't think it's technically the WaPo, because it's posted on a collaborative blog (marked opinion), so it's probably a personal initiative of Volokh (a law professor) and Levy (an attorney). See also http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/10/10/a-tip-of-the-hat-to-matthew-chan-whose-call-helped-us-uncover-the-many-suspicious-internet-takedown-cases/ http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016... for how it started.

mozumder 10y ago
That's where the tip started, but this excellent work wouldn't have happened without the Washington Post funding the blog itself.
- conistonwater 10y ago
  Are you sure WaPo is funding them at all, not just hosting? It says here (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/about/?utm_term=.3338b53cb7b1 https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/about/...) they are mostly law professors who write for themselves and retain their own editorial control. It used to be an independently hosted blog for a very long time too. That's why I said I think they did it on their own (nothing wrong with that sort of thing).
  - burkaman 10y ago
    > We are sharing advertising revenue with the Post, but I’m pretty sure it won’t be much. Our hourly rate for our blogging time will remain pretty pathetic. We’re not in it for the money; if we were, we’d be writing briefs, not blog posts. - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2014/01/21/in-brazil-you-can-always-find-the-amazon-in-america-the-amazon-finds-you-2/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201... Sounds like this probably would have happened with or without the Post.
    - delbel 10y ago
      Good because WaPo is not a reputable source of information.

CalRobert 10y ago

There is work being done on this. Both in terms of access to court opinions (which ought to be free but are often obscured via bureaucracy) and materials for people interested in learning about the law. https://free.law/ https://free.law/ https://github.com/freelawproject/courtlistener https://github.com/freelawproject/courtlistener https://www.courtlistener.com/ https://www.courtlistener.com/ Disclaimer: While I have no affiliation with this project, I am friends and former roommates of the Free Law Project's Director.