Fix the Court

Federal Public Defenders Launch Hub for Supreme Court Cases (1) Federal public defenders are launching a centralized effort to coordinate Supreme Court litigation in order to sharpen the defense bar’s performance before the justices.

Federal public defenders are launching a centralized effort to coordinate Supreme Court litigation in order to sharpen the defense bar’s performance before the justices.

A positive development, but until PACER is free for all users, we + @free.law will continue to lead the charge to make it so.

As government and private sector IT systems come under increasing attack by sophisticated cyber criminals, two federal judges outlined a plan before the Judicial Conference of the United States to accelerate the Judiciary’s development of a new more secure case management system. Addressing the Conference on Tuesday, Appellate Judge Michael Y. Scudder, who chairs the Conference’s Information Technology Committee, and District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove, chairman of the Committee on Court Administration and Case Management, said that development of a replacement for the federal Judiciary’s aging system is on a fast track, with initial components being tested this year at six courts around the country. “This project is a top priority for our branch,” Judge Van Tatenhove said. “It is one we are accelerating to meet our security and operational needs. We must do this given the acute and persistent risk faced by our current CM/ECF system. The new system will replace the Case Management/Electronic Case Files system (CM/ECF) that the courts have relied on for nearly three decades to manage heavy caseloads and carry out court operations. It is used by litigants to file cases and related documents, and it provides the public with access to over 1 billion court records. It is anticipated that the district courts will be the first to start implementing aspects of the new case management system within the next year, followed by appellate and bankruptcy courts. The timeline for completion is two to three years sooner than originally expected.

We have two goals for PACER:

1) Make it secure and modern
2) Make it free

After getting repeatedly hacked, the courts are finally modernizing PACER. The best time for security is before you get hacked, but we'll take the win.

The new system must be free. www.uscourts.gov/data-news/ju...

How many civil cases have been pending in the judiciary for more than 3 years? The answer is 🤯 YouTube video by Fix the Court

Want to see something insane? youtube.com/shorts/SUts9...

Supreme Court justices Jackson and Kavanaugh clash over handling of Trump cases Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh disagreed about frequent rulings in favor of the Trump administration during a rare joint appearance.

NEW: Liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh clashed during a rare joint public appearance over the Supreme Court's frequent rulings for Trump via the shadow docket:
www.nbcnews.com/politics/sup...

The Justice Department Is Lowering Its Ethical Guardrails For generations, strict limits on the DOJ's political activity helped sustain trust. Weakening those limits threatens to erode it.

The Justice Department Is Lowering Its Ethical Guardrails
https://abovethelaw.com/2026/03/the-justice-department-is-lowering-its-ethical-guardrails/

This policy needs to be revisited. A couple thousand of these cases around the country in last few months. Many filings inaccessible.
Even causes problems for US Attorney offices because THEY can't see the filings remotely unless the specific attorney is assigned to that case

The Long History of Supreme Court Reform Americans have tinkered with the high court since the founding.

At a moment when tens of millions of Americans are deeply unhappy with the Supreme Court, it is hard to envision a clear path to reform. Yet history shows that such a path has been taken many times before. bit.ly/4atgYkQ

I feel like we typically see these sorts of completely outraged opinions from federal judges a couple times a year across the whole country, maybe a little more often in last few years. Now, in cases stemming from Trump's immigration crackdown, judges are ringing the alarm bell several times a week.

What about for the justices of the Supreme Court?

"Journalists scrutinize power. It’s job no. 1 & we can’t have a Supreme Court-sized exception [to that]," per @jodikantor.bsky.social. 💯

We're pleased to see newsrooms investing more resources into coverage of the most powerful, least accountable part of our gov't www.politico.com/news/magazin....

SCOTUStoday for Tuesday, March 3 As we’ve noted before, we read a lot of legal news in the process of preparing this newsletter. Here’s a headline we saw recently that we won’t soon forget: References […]

Too funny — @scotusblog.com wrote about this exchange in its daily newsletter www.scotusblog.com/2026/03/scot....

Justice Barrett didn't have a sudden revelation about the existence of ayahuasca during #SCOTUS args. y'day.

She looked at Justice Kagan after her "is that real" question & Kagan nodded.

Unless you were there, you'd never know bc #SCOTUS still bans cameras 👎 www.supremecourt.gov/oral_argumen....

Did you know that if you don't talk about the climate crisis, the problem magically goes away? Seems to be the thinking in the federal judiciary these days.

Exclusive | Trump Administration to Drop Defense of Law Firm Sanctions The Justice Department is expected to drop its appeals of four trial-court rulings that struck down the president’s actions against Jenner & Block, WilmerHale, Perkins Coie, and Susman Godfrey.

Trump administration realizes it cannot defend the indefensible extortion orders against law firms.
www.wsj.com/us-news/law/...

Retiring justice: Keep courts impartial, independent, not ‘lap dogs’ North Dakota Supreme Court Justice Daniel Crothers urged his colleagues to keep the judicial branch impartial as he closes out his 20-year career on the court this week.“My only words for anyone follo...

A Republican-appointed state supreme court justice is criticizing President Trump's "lapdog" comment following the U.S. Supreme Court's tariffs ruling.

"That’s not helpful to anybody," N.D. Supreme Court Justice Daniel Crothers said.

And it's about to get worse — start following 25-756 at SCOTUS

Coming to the shadow docket in late spring!

The Supreme Court keeps engaging in this indefensible, nontransparent practice The latest chapter in the court’s refusal to stream and publish audio of its opinion announcements highlights the absurdity of the justices’ approach.

From @ms.now: "Fix the Court’s efforts are appreciated here. They also shouldn’t be needed. [...] Gabe Roth, acknowledged as much in announcing the audio [FTC] obtained & posted. 'This is not hard: the Court should livestream the audio of opinion announcements [...] as it does for oral arguments.'"

The pileup of blatantly unlawful conduct by the government in this case is astonishing, as is the fact that the Supreme Court allowed the govt to go forward with this program in a shadow docket ruling

Short version is we emailed/called SCOTUS & the Archives monthly from October to January but got no response on the files' whereabout until a call with a SCOTUS PIO in January confirmed they had been sent to NARA. Then it took another month to find the right contact at NARA who was willing to help.

Exciting news! We've exclusively obtained & posted the missing Supreme Court opinion announcement audio from last term fixthecourt.com/2026/02/the-... #SCOTUS

Only four members of SCOTUS are in attendance tonight: Roberts, Barrett, Kav, and Kagan.

We filed a misconduct complaint today against E.D. Mich. Judge Ludington fixthecourt.com/wp-content/u....

It's one thing to get arrested for drunk driving, removeable on its own, & another to keep doing your job — a position of public trust — for almost 5 months as if nothing happened.

Big announcement coming tomorrow from Fix the Court!

Ex-Judge Wolf’s Staff Describe Walking on Eggshells in Chambers Former Massachusetts federal Judge Mark Wolf, who said he stepped down from the bench last year to freely raise concerns about President Donald Trump, created a stressful culture for his chambers staff, according to seven former employees.

Former Massachusetts federal Judge Mark Wolf, who said he stepped down from the bench last year to freely raise concerns about President Donald Trump, created a stressful culture for his chambers staff, according to seven former employees.

Americans Have Paid For 96% of Tariff Costs, Study Finds An analysis found that Americans are paying nearly all the cost of President Donald Trump's import taxes, contradicting claims that foreigners are footing the bill.

Per J. Kavanaugh's dissent, the U.S. "may be required to refund billions of dollars to importers who paid the tariffs, even though some importers may have already passed on costs to consumers or others."

Some? May? Importers passed on 96% (!) of tariffs' costs www.investopedia.com/americans-ha...

BREAKING: SUPREME COURT STRIKES DOWN TRUMP TARIFFS
"The President asserts the extraordinary power to unilaterally impose tariffs of unlimited amount, duration, and
scope...he must identify clear congressional authorization to exercise it." www.courthousenews.com/supreme-cour...

Cannot unsee the Chief Justice in a BabyBjörn

Inside the surge of threats against public officials fueling a rise in prosecutions: "It's too much" A CBS News analysis found 126 cases that were brought by federal prosecutors last year arising out of threats to public officials.

"If I were in my 30s or 40s with young children at home & thinking about going on the federal bench, 1 of the factors [to consider] is we may be exposing ourselves to possible violence" —W.D. Wash. Judge Coughenour
@melissaquinn97.bsky.social @jakemrosen.bsky.social www.cbsnews.com/news/threats...