Pacer will restore deleted case records
The Pacer electronic database for the federal courts will restore case records that were deleted in August, the federal judiciary announced on Friday.
Pacer had deleted older, closed court records for four federal appeals courts and one bankruptcy court because they were not compatible with a Pacer overhaul. The Administrative Office of U.S. Courts now says the records will be restored on a rolling basis, and the process will be completed by the end of October. The Wall Street Journal Law Blog, the Washington Post blog the Switch and the National Law Journal have stories.
The news was announced in a letter (PDF) to Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., who had urged restoration of the records.
Leahy had voiced his concerns in a Sept. 12 letter (PDF) to the Administrative Office. “Wholesale removal of thousands of cases from Pacer, particularly from four of our federal courts of appeals, will severely limit access to information not only for legal practitioners, but also for legal scholars, historians, journalists, and private litigants for whom Pacer has become the go-to source for court filings,” he wrote.
Hat tip to How Appealing.
