Asking Rehnquist to free 14 years of Court Opinions

[James Love <love@tap.org>]

 *** Sign-on Letter asking the U.S. Supreme Court to 
     release to the public 14 years of court opinions.

The attached sign-on letter asks Chief Justice Rehnquist to put 
into the public domain the electronic copies of the typesetting 
files used to print the official version of all U.S. Supreme 
Court Decisions since 1982.  

   To add your name to the letter, send a note James Love, at
   love@tap.org, by October 18, 1996.

We are trying to get a copy of the ATEX typesetting files used to 
publish the United States Reports, the government's official 
reporter of U.S. Supreme Court opinions.  The Air Force has 
recently released (from its FLITE database) copies of Supreme 
Court decisions from 1937 to 1975.  If Rehnquist agrees, the 
public would have free access to 54 of the last 60 years of 
Supreme Court opinions, missing only the opinions from 1976 to 
1981.  The records are now controlled by Frank Wagner, the 
Reporter of Decisions for the Supreme Court, who can be reached 
at the court's main number, at 202/479-3000.  In 1993 Mr. Wagner 
denied a request by Alan Sugarman for copies of these records.  
Mr. Wagner recently declined to talk with us about the ATEX 
records.  The decision about public access to these records is 
reportedly made by Rehnquist himself.  For more background on 
issues relating to public access to court opinions, see:
http://www.essential.org/cpt/legalinfo/legalinfo.html.

   jamie  (love@tap.org)

 The letter follows...

---------------------------------

October 18, 1996

Chief Justice William Rehnquist
United States Supreme Court
Washington, DC 20543

Dear Chief Justice Rehnquist:

We are writing to ask that the United States Supreme Court 
release to the public copies of the electronic media used for 
printing the United States Reports.  It is our understanding that 
the Court currently has magnetic tapes which contain the 
typesetting computer files used to print the United States 
Reports from 1982 to the present, and that these tapes have not 
been released to the public.   We seek to obtain copies of these 
tapes to publish the Supreme Court decisions on the Internet, the 
decisions will be available to the general public, for free.  As 
you know, the public has already paid the costs of creating this 
data through tax dollars, and federal law prohibits the copyright 
of works of federal employees.  We are willing to pay the court 
any reasonable additional costs associated with making copies of 
the printing tapes.  We want to make it clear that we are not 
asking the court to undertake any extra data processing expense, 
outside of making copies of the tapes.*
----------------------------------------------------
[*] It is our understanding that the data exists in ATEX typesetting 
format.  This is the same format used by GPO to publish the Federal 
Register.  GPO gives the public access to the ATEX files of the 
Federal Register, and we urge the Supreme Court to do the same.
---------------------------------------------------------

This request is part of our larger efforts to enhance the 
public's access to information from the courts.  In September the 
U.S. Air Force was persuaded to release a portion of its FLITE 
database of U.S. Supreme Court opinions.  The Air Force released 
to the public about 7,400 Supreme Court decisions from 1937 to 
1975.  It took more than four years to get the Air Force to 
release these public documents, which were created at taxpayer 
expense.  Due to a copyright dispute with West Publishing, the 
Air Force has refused to release copies of its post 1975 Supreme 
Court Opinions, which were typed in from the West Supreme Court 
Reporter, rather than from the government's own United States 
Reports.

As you may know, there is great public frustration over the 
restricted access to federal court opinions.   This is a 
particular problem with the U.S. Circuit and District Courts, 
where West Publishing is the only comprehensive publisher of 
opinions, and West asserts a copyright to the corrections that 
appear in the published versions of the opinions, and also to the 
citations to the court opinions.   West's activities have had the 
practical effect of giving this private firm a monopoly on the 
version of American jurisprudence that is widely recognized as 
the authoritative record of the lower federal courts.

The Supreme Court  has a proud history of making its opinions 
publicly available, through its long-term publication of opinions 
in print through United States Reports, and since 1990 through 
making its slip opinions available to the public electronically.  
The Court should now take the additional step of releasing the 
electronic record of the United States Reports, so that the 
public can be assured of the greatest access to the law.

Sincerely,

....


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James Love / love@tap.org / P.O. Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
Voice: 202/387-8030; Fax 202/234-5176
Center for Study of Responsive Law
   Consumer Project on Technology; http://www.essential.org/cpt
   Taxpayer Assets Project; http://www.tap.org
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