In the digital age, the US Supreme Court insisted on the huge paper pile

Washington: In his year -end report in 2023, Chief Justice John Roberts celebrated “The Digital Revolution in the Federal Courts”. Electronic filing, he wrote, “providing alternative paper on a large scale”.But not in the Supreme Court. In addition to the requirement of electronic submission, its rules instruct the cases that are not prisoners or poor to file 40 paper copies of several documents, including petitions, seeking reviews, opposing them, protesting with the parties to agree to listen to the brief from the parties and floods with the flood of friendly and friendly.And this is just the beginning of the detailed court requirements. Paper filing should take the form of beautiful small typeset booklets printed on paper “which is opaque, is unconscious and not less than 60 pounds in weight”. Rules specify permissible fonts and margins, as well as how to bind the booklet – “with left margin firmly at at least two places (saddle stitching or perfect binding favorite).” There are booklets, allows for subject matter, there is a pleasure to read. They are also fruitless, expensive and useless.Professor William J. Asswes of a law of a law of California Western School of Law wrote in a study published in Colorado Law Review last month, “The courts spend significant and unnecessary costs for the court rules and environment.” He urged the court to remove with paper submissions, especially for the first round brief, whether Justice should hear a case. Completely focusing on those early filing, Aceves calculated court rules, requiring more than 5 million pieces of paper of each word.“If stacking together, the filing will reach ahead of 2,000 feet, which is higher than the height of the tallest building in the US,” he wrote. “If weighed, these filing will take more than 33 tons of paper to produce.”The court can do electronic filing and a single hard copy. In fact, it did this during the epidemic, when it suspended general rules for filing during the first round of briefing starting in April 2020.The cases and scholars welcomed development. Josh Blackman, a law professor at the South Texas College of Law, said Parivartan indicated the end of the “Byzantine Policy to present the printed brief”. More than a year later, however, the court restored the rule. Some judges have said that they read at least some briefs electronically. Justice Antonin Skalia, who died in 2016, used an iPad. In an interview in 2009, Justice Elena Kagan said she likes a kindle. Aceves said that they had urged the court clerk and the Chief Justice to consider the matter to consider the case. “In the light of my arguments, I recognize the irony of sending hard copies … but I don’t have their email addresses.”