I’m not 100% in agreement with this being valuable. There are many shady people who initiate cases, and if the Pacer data was free, then many would be hurt by having been mentioned as a defendant for cases that had no merit to begin with.
The sad reality is that if someone was accused of something and later recused, many casual observers will fail to double click through everything to uncover that the defendant was cleared of any wrong doing. Even worse, many people settle whilst innocent as the cost of litigation exceeds settlement requests—-therefore even if someone did double click to learn the outcome, their reputation is tarnished nonetheless.
I hate paying the pacer fees, but if it creates a barrier to people misusing (which I am 100% certain will happen) what they find, then the Pacer fees are in fact a good thing. Put bluntly, unlocking Pacer to be free for all will have a devastating effect on minorities who have been racially targeted by bad actors in the past.
The sad reality is that if someone was accused of something and later recused, many casual observers will fail to double click through everything to uncover that the defendant was cleared of any wrong doing. Even worse, many people settle whilst innocent as the cost of litigation exceeds settlement requests—-therefore even if someone did double click to learn the outcome, their reputation is tarnished nonetheless.
I hate paying the pacer fees, but if it creates a barrier to people misusing (which I am 100% certain will happen) what they find, then the Pacer fees are in fact a good thing. Put bluntly, unlocking Pacer to be free for all will have a devastating effect on minorities who have been racially targeted by bad actors in the past.