“Court may bless refunds for online access to judicial records; Judges express fears that government stance could lead to fees subsidizing Supreme Court curtains or ‘gold-plated toilets'”: Josh Gerstein of Politico has a report that begins, “A lawsuit accusing the federal court system of treating nearly a billion dollars in online access fees like a slush fund got a favorable reception on Monday from an appeals court, where the main question that judges seemed interested in debating was how to calculate the extent to which the public was bilked.”
“Should the public pay a dime for access to court records?” Ann E. Marimow of The Washington Post has this report.
Perry Cooper of Bloomberg Law reports that “Federal Circuit Hammers Government on Use of PACER Fees” (subscription required for full access).
Jacqueline Thomsen of The National Law Journal has an article headlined “Gold-Plated Toilets and SCOTUS Curtains: Federal Circuit Questions Proper Use of PACER Fees; The judges offered up hypotheticals about when PACER fees could be used by the federal judiciary, like the redecoration of judges’ chambers.”
You can access via this link (52.4 MB mp3 audio file) the audio of today’s oral argument before a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.
“Appealed Too Soon? The Saving Graces of Pa. Rule of Appellate Procedure 905(a)(5).” This month’s installment of my “Upon Further Review” column will appear in Tuesday’s edition of The Legal Intelligencer, Philadelphia’s daily newspaper for lawyers.
“The Alarming Prospect of the Supreme Court Deciding the 2020 Election; If the country’s nine justices wind up deciding the presidential race, things could get very ugly very quickly”: Law professor Richard L. Hasen — author of the “Election Law Blog” — has this essay online at The Atlantic.
“Justice Clarence Thomas Questions Proposal to Bar Judges From Membership in Ideological Groups; Ethics proposal by federal judiciary’s policy-making body would tighten guidance letting them belong to two organizations but not take leadership roles”: Jess Bravin of The Wall Street Journal has this report.
