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How can anyone (including non-lawyers who have no access to the private databases with fees) obtain publicly and freely available court filings in Federal court? Including criminal cases, civil cases and related evidence and documents filed with the court for any case, recent and historic.
And similar records from State court systems.
To the best of my understanding (and please correct me if wrong) generally all court cases, evidence and documents are made publicly available by the court systems in both electronic (web) and paper format.
I thought this would be a thread asking to compare using electronic sources to going down to the courthouse and reading it in paper.
Either go to findlaw.com or law.cornell.edu (they have cases online /@ no cost to you).
Ask the reference librarian at your local law library. He/She will know what’s available in your area. If you are an alum of a university with a law school, you probably can ask the law school’s reference librarian. In some cases, the larger public library’s have someone familiar with legal reference sources.
Most courts have websites which make some things freely available. There are few uniform policies among the districts and circuits and fewer between the states. So in answer to your question: it depends what you are trying to get. It may not be “publicly and freely available.” Asking someone knowledgeable for specific help is a good place to start.
District?
That would be the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey. Their website is at: link removed
They have three divisions (Trenton, Camden and Newark). The website gives contact information for the Clerk’s office (the “Clerk” is the one in charge of the administration of the court).
PACER should give you most of what you want for a nominal fee per page. It’s on the court’s (district of nj)website. If it is a high profile case about which you curious you can try using google search terms creatively to see if someone else attached it to a blog or something.
PACER costs: An access fee of $0.10 per page or $2.40 per document with an audio attachment.
IDK if the court clerk will or can do what you are requesting. Personally I wouldn’t bother unless very important.
NY Supreme Court, NY county is the state trial level court in nyc. Kings county in brooklyn. SDNY federal court in nyc. EDNY in brooklyn. Fed courts all use pacer but may have different protocols as to how they update their files. Nearly all this info and more is available online if you look. Start with the court website. SCROLL is the acronym i believe (al for ny county). There’s also something called webcivil and webcrims for many state counties in ny. Good luck.
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