At its closed-door meeting at the Supreme Court Tuesday, the Judicial Conference approved measures aimed at making federal court documents and courtroom audio recordings more widely available and at lower cost.
The conference, the policymaking arm of the federal judiciary, voted to increase the number of documents members of the public can obtain free through the PACER system. Currently, users can get up to $10 worth of free documents annually, but now they can get $10 free per quarter. Anthony Scirica, chief judge of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and chair of the conference’s executive committee, said that based on past usage patterns, the change would mean that 75 percent of PACER users would pay nothing for a year of use. Scirica held a press conference at the Court following the conference meeting.
