"Be the first kid on your block ... " Long ago that sales pitch was used to sell things to children. Today, there are still lots of people who take enormous pleasure in being among the first to have the hottest new thing. They are called early adopters in the tech business, and those of us who aren't early adopters benefit from their willingness to pay high prices for still buggy software and for gadgets that may or may not endure. Remember the Betamax? Personally, I am content to let others be the lab rats research participants and wait for version X.1.
The federal courts are not early adopters, Chief Justice Roberts explains in his 2014 Year-End Report on the Judiciary, and the U.S. Supreme Court particularly is not. Filing documents over the internet is an important advance, but development of the system has been slow in the federal district courts and courts of appeals, and the Supreme Court still doesn't have it. Today we email PDFs of briefs on the due date, but the printed brief must still be in the mail on that day, and that is the official filing.
SCOTUS will finally come around in 2016, but the Chief wants to make sure the system is equally available to all. Unlike the CM/ECF system for the lower federal courts, access will be free to the public.
The report begins with an amusing bit of infotech history -- pneumatic tubes carrying documents around the building. The report is well done, not long, and worth reading.
The federal courts are not early adopters, Chief Justice Roberts explains in his 2014 Year-End Report on the Judiciary, and the U.S. Supreme Court particularly is not. Filing documents over the internet is an important advance, but development of the system has been slow in the federal district courts and courts of appeals, and the Supreme Court still doesn't have it. Today we email PDFs of briefs on the due date, but the printed brief must still be in the mail on that day, and that is the official filing.
SCOTUS will finally come around in 2016, but the Chief wants to make sure the system is equally available to all. Unlike the CM/ECF system for the lower federal courts, access will be free to the public.
The report begins with an amusing bit of infotech history -- pneumatic tubes carrying documents around the building. The report is well done, not long, and worth reading.
I know that California State Courts have finally gone to an online filing system for civil cases. Does the same hold true for criminal filings and/or appeals?
And, Beta didn't lose it out because it was inferior in performance.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betamax