The Washington Post
Wednesday, November 19, 1997
Online Justice
It's time for the Supreme Court to get on the Internet
By Stuart N. Brotman

Judge Hiller B. Zobel's Internet posting of his decision to reduce Louise Woodward's second degree murder conviction to involuntary manslaughter might prove to be the jolt the U.S. Supreme Court needs to build its own electronic bridge to the 2lst century.
Judge Zobel acted creatively by seeking to use the best medium for disseminating his opinion, given the intense interest of the public in the case both here and in the United Kingdom. After all, through CNN, Court TV and the like, millions of viewers were able to see the trial and initial verdict delivery in their entirety. Releasing the new opinion through the news media alone would have enabled the same audience to find out what happened, but without the same level of immediacy or completeness.
Judge Zobel's decision to use the Internet as a first resort, rather than as a secondary outlet for distributing court decisions that already had appeared in print, distinguishes his effort as a pioneering one in the United States. Other jurists, such as Lord Justice Saville of the UK Appeals Court, have demonstrated this method is workable for national as well as state court systems.
Granted, the mechanics of ensuring the integrity of distributing a court opinion on the Internet proved to be more formidable than Judge Zobel anticipated, especially given the possibility that hackers could break into his web site and perpetrate a fraud among millions of unsuspecting Internet users. But in the end, by e-mailing the decision to respected news outlets that would be in a position to receive the news, pass it on and report on it all at once, even those skeptical about the practicalities of the plan were able to put their objections aside.
Next stop - the US Supreme Court. If it worked once in Cambridge, Mass., why not have it work all the time in Washington, D.C.? The U.S. Supreme Court's decisions are, by definition, of national importance, and a release of its opinions on the Internet would raise the court's visibility and respectability around the country, indeed the entire world. To date, the justices have been adamant in keeping cameras out of their courtroom, suggesting that the court's decorum would be disrupted and that arguing lawyers would play to the cameras as well as to the bench.
But this line of reasoning doesn't apply to using the Internet after the court has concluded its deliberations and issued an opinion. The court, unlike Judge Zobel, could move into the electronic age more modestly by making the Internet a non-exclusive medium for distribution, ensuring that those who want to send couriers to receive a document with ink still drying could continue to do so. And if Supreme Court Internet access was available on a continuing rather than a one-shot basis, the body politic would benefit greatly by having ready reference to the full text as well as news reports, either at home or through community outlets such as schools and libraries.
The court can implement this plan on its own through unanimous agreement, but Congress may need to support it through additional appropriations that would cover formatting and other electronic distribution issues. So log on now, e-mail your congressmen and senators (they're already online) and let them know that this is something of substantial civic value.