Summary

Re: AskGPO: Inquiry Status Closed 00195418: U.S. Courts opinions on govinfo.gov Thank you for reaching out to the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts regarding the posting of court opinions on the Government Publishing Office’s (GPO) GovInfo website. The posting of opinions on the GovInfo website is consistent with the E-Government Act of 2002’s requirement that the substance of all written opinions issued after April 16, 2005, be made available online in a text-searchable format. See Pub. L. No. 107-347, Title II, Section 205(a)(5). Pursuant to a Judicial Conference initiative to facilitate greater public access to court opinions, many federal courts send their publicly available opinions to the GPO for posting on the GovInfo website. Furthermore, under Judicial Conference policy, the responsibility for determining which documents meet the definition of an opinion rests with the authoring judge. Consequently, only those documents that are identified as opinions by the authoring judges from participating courts will be made available on the GovInfo website. All other publicly available case documents (including orders) remain accessible electronically via PACER, consistent with section 205(a)(6) and section 205(c)(1) of the E-Government Act of 2002. The following website explains how to access case records electronically and any fees associated with such access: https://www.uscourts.gov/courtrecords/find-a-case-pacer. If you believe a court opinion has been improperly excluded from being made available via the GovInfo website, you must petition the issuing court directly to have it designated as an opinion in that court’s case management system. If you have questions about how to set up a PACER account or access case documents via PACER, please visit the PACER website (https://pacer.uscourts.gov/) or contact the PACER Service Center at pacer@psc.uscourts.gov or (800) 676-6856. AOdb_Court_Opinions Court_Opinions@ao.uscourts.gov

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