Connecticut Superior Court Opinions Should Be Freely Available Online
Last winter I attended a seminar on “What Connecticut Judges Want You To Know.”
In law school I learned that a lawyer should always cite cases from the highest court in the state while writing briefs. It was explained that superior or lower court opinions were useful only to the degree that they explained or applied the rulings of higher courts. All of this is true in theory.
A Superior Court judge in Connecticut is bound to follow the ruling of a higher court (either the CT Supreme Court or the Appellate Court). A judge is not compelled to follow an opinion of another superior court judge.
At the seminar a panel of judges stressed the importance of citing the opinions of other superior court judges in briefs to the court. The judges explained that they are always interested in reading how their colleagues dealt with an issue.
The point is that decisions of superior court judges in Connecticut matter. They are vital to the practice of law in Connecticut.
The Judicial Branch website makes the opinions of the Supreme and Appellate Courts available online.
Given the importance of trial court decisions in our State, the ease of publication of cases on the internet and the renewed spirit of openness in Connecticut courts I think that it’s time the judicial branch made superior court decisions available online for free on its website.
October 23rd, 2008 at 10:50 am
Couldn’t agree more with you. I was actually thinking about a column for the Tribune on it or SOMETHING to raise this issue further. Its a travesty to have to PAY to view these decisions or see them reprinted in the Reporter or the Tribune.
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October 24th, 2008 at 9:53 am
You guys don’t have lexis or westlaw?
Um, Ryan…what the heck is that thing below the comment box?
Gideon’s last blog post..To bail or not to bail
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October 24th, 2008 at 10:02 am
I have westlaw.
It is my opinion that the citizens of Connecticut should have the ability to have online free access to superior court decisions.
First, I’m in favor of an open judiciary. Citizens if the so choose should have access to opinions such as the lower court opinion in Kerrigan.
Second, given the importance of the opinions and the rising number of pro se litigants, having the opinions available online at no cost may at least in theory help pro se litigants understand the law.
Third, I want to link to them in blog posts!
The button below the comment box is a plugin that automatically links to the most recent post you made on your blog and displays the title here.
For some reason, it works for you and hasn’t worked for Dan.
I’ve been playing around a lot around here with various plugins and widgets and am trying to see what works and what doesn’t.
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October 24th, 2008 at 10:29 am
I like the plugin! It’s interesting.
As for the Superior Court decision thing: certainly more is better. I’d be more in favor of showing live feeds of the oral arguments in the appellate courts.
I know briefs are going online sometime soon.
Gideon’s last blog post..To bail or not to bail
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October 24th, 2008 at 12:02 pm
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/commentluv/
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October 26th, 2008 at 9:07 am
I have Lexis but agree completely. Lexis is a deductible expense for me, for a pro se, or simply a curious citizen, it is quite expensive. In addition, the Judicial Branch could improve the way it posts the Appellate decisions. The advance release opinions are posted, but not the official decisions with citations. While there is some virtue to getting decisions out a week ahead of time, there is no ability to cite to these unformated decisions. Judicial ought to put all of Conn Reports, Conn App & Conn Supp online, either at the Judicial website or at the State Library site.
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October 28th, 2008 at 9:17 am
Yes, we have lexis or westlaw, but sometimes I like to browse the cases. And the point is the cases shouldn’t belong to them. In the past, they were useful because it was prohibitively expensive for the state to post and track the cases. It’s not anymore.
I will say that the CT Law Libraries have been doing a good job with their RSS feeds. You can get a feed to the Advanced Released Opinions which is pretty good. Next up, could we ask for a Twitter feed?
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