{"id":205,"date":"2018-04-27T15:49:14","date_gmt":"2018-04-27T19:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/?page_id=205"},"modified":"2025-05-12T11:14:30","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T15:14:30","slug":"the-price-of-ignorance-the-constitutional-cost-of-fees-for-access-to-electronic-public-court-records","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/in-print\/volume-106\/volume-106-issue-4-april-2018\/the-price-of-ignorance-the-constitutional-cost-of-fees-for-access-to-electronic-public-court-records\/","title":{"rendered":"The Price of Ignorance: The Constitutional Cost of Fees for Access to Electronic Public Court Records"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This Note argues that the Judiciary has erected a fee structure that forecloses\u00a0essential democratic ends because the fees make public federal court records\u00a0practically inaccessible. The per-page fee model inhibits constitutionally protected\u00a0activities without promoting equally transcendent ends. Through this fee\u00a0system, the Judiciary collects fees at ever-increasing rates and uses much of the\u00a0revenue for entirely different purposes. In this era, the actual cost of storing and\u00a0transmitting digital records approaches zero. Hence, PACER should be free.<\/p>\n<p>This Note examines the public\u2019s interest in free electronic access to federal\u00a0court records and considers the relative strength of legal and policy arguments to\u00a0the contrary. Part I performs an accounting of the true costs of a free-access regime.\u00a0Part II details the benefits of free electronic access to federal court records.\u00a0Part III argues that, in the tradition of Richmond Newspapers, free access to electronic\u00a0court records is a constitutionally necessary element of the structure of our modern Judiciary.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/26\/2018\/07\/The-Price-of-Ignorance.pdf\">Keep Reading The Price of Ignorance<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This Note argues that the Judiciary has erected a fee structure that forecloses\u00a0essential democratic ends because the fees make public federal court records\u00a0practically inaccessible. The per-page fee model inhibits constitutionally [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"parent":202,"menu_order":6,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"abstract.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":"","_tec_slr_enabled":"","_tec_slr_layout":""},"class_list":["post-205","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"ticketed":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23754,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/205\/revisions\/23754"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.law.georgetown.edu\/georgetown-law-journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}