Charging user fees for court records harms the credibility of the federal judiciary, according to seven retired federal judges including former U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Judge Richard Posner in an amicus brief filed in a class action over PACER fees.
The brief was one of five filed on Wednesday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, which is hearing an appeal of a 2018 court ruling about the legality of user fees that the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts charges for access to court records via its Public Access to Court Electronic Records system, or PACER. Other briefs came from former U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, several “next-generation legal research platforms and databases,” the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and 27 media organizations, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Cato Institute and others, all in support of the plaintiffs, who were represented by Deepak Gupta of Gupta Wessler in Washington, D.C.
