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Friday, July 25, 2008

Courts - "High Court Justices Go Digital to Access Founding-Era Documents"

Some quotes from a fascinating article today by Tony Mauro of Legal Times:

U.S. Supreme Court justices on both sides in the landmark D.C. v. Heller gun rights case resorted to original documents in making their case about the meaning of the Second Amendment. But they used a little-known digital resource to get there, a project whose mission is to digitize thousands of Founding-era documents that shed light on the original meaning of the Constitution.

The Constitutional Sources Project, which launched publicly last September, has digitized and made freely available online more than 11,000 historical documents relating to the Constitution and the amendments. Among them are at least 20 documents cited by majority and dissenting opinions in Heller, says the project's co-founder and executive director Lorianne Updike.

"We were very pleased to be a resource for the highest court in the land," Updike says. * * *

The project is housed at Winston & Strawn's Washington, D.C., offices, where partner Gene Schaerr was one of the founders and creators of the project. More than 20 years ago when he clerked at the Supreme Court, Schaerr and fellow clerk Randall Guynn -- now with Davis Polk & Wardwell in New York -- had a hard time tracking down original documents relating to the First Amendment's establishment clause for research they were doing. Ever since, Schaerr has worked to find ways of getting as many Founding documents online as possible.

At first, the idea was to partner with the National Archives or Library of Congress as well as a university, but that was "way too bureaucratic," Updike says. So a smaller group was formed, and the project was begun quietly in 2005. Updike has raised $1.6 million from law firms, foundations and small donors, who can "adopt a document" online. Word has spread; last month the Web site attracted its 1 millionth visitor.

"The overriding purpose is to expand the public understanding of the Constitution and its history," says Schaerr, who heads the firm's appellate and critical motions practice.

The ILB has been working on creating similar resources for Indiana constitutional and statutory history.

The Road to Indiana Statehood digital collection is a great and essential start, but rather unwieldy to work with -- the various documents on the constitution need to be tied together with cross-links, etc.

In addition, I envision all the Acts of Indiana, readily accessible, as well as the Journals. And a resource on the Indiana Constitution tracking the evolution of every one of its provisions from 1816 to the present. Also, the complete documentary history of the Indiana Code of 1971 (I have nearly completed this).

I agree with the Winston & Strawn quote that many approaches end up being "way too bureaucratic" and take way too long, recalling, for instance, my five year effort to get the General Assembly to post its various digital versions of the Indiana Code and the Acts of Indiana online.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 25, 2008 09:07 AM
Posted to Courts in general