fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Erik E. Fair) (08/14/88)
The San Francisco Chronicle, Saturday, August 13, 1988: S U P R E M E C O U R T T R I E S M O R E O F C O M P U T E R A G E United Press International Washington Citing its "unique position in the American judicial system," the Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will consider ways to make its opinions more readily accessible to the public by distributing them via computer. James R. Donovan, the court's director of data systems, invited news wires, legal publishers, and legal research data base providers to submit proposals outlining how they would handle the distribution of the court's decisions. "The court tentatively contemplates a one to three year experiment with the period of review based in part on the outside entity's investment," he said. The court, a bastion of tradition, has been reluctant to enter the computer age. It was not until 1981 that the justices switched from typewriters to word processors for writing their opinions. Currently, the only way members of the public may obtain an opinion on the day of its release is to go to the court and pick one up. Wire services report on the opinions the moment they are issued, but the complete text of the decisions are only made available by various legal publishers about a week after their release. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - I'd love to see the Supreme court opinions here on USENET. Perhaps this is something that UUNET (or any other capable site) should submit a proposal to do? comments? Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu [followups are directed to news.misc]