Gregg, come on, I understand what you are saying.
I still do not know what the risks are that your are talking about. What
risk?
Anyway, I note an interesting contradiction in your argument. First you
talk about "virtual" pages which will have a flexible length. Then next
you talk about the automatic page numbering features in all word
processing programs. I do not think that these standard features are
going to easily deal with your virtual pages. If you have a footnote on
a page, sometime adding even one word on a page will move the footnote to
the next page in these automatic numbering features. So, in the end,
these automatic features will not work. Have you tried to implement your
thoughts in say a 50 page opinion with footnotes etc. I think not.
Finally, I think you should reconsider your statement about incompetence
in the Reporter's Office at the United States Supreme Court. I am sure
that Frank Wagner, the Reporter of Decisions has a somewhat different
perspective. The quality provided by each of the versions of the
opinions, from the slip opinions through the Preliminary Print through
the final United States Reports is close to perfection. And, it was the
Reporter with others on the Supreme Court staff that initiated project
Hermes in 1991 which marked a basic change in approach to the
dissemination of court opinions.
The people involved at the Court are well aware of the problem. Slip
pagnination just does not seem to work as a permanent official citation,
for the very reason that the page breaks are not permanent. The Supreme
Court basically has rejected theis concept ... the slip pagination does
not appear in the final United States Reports. And, this has been going
on for years and years. It does not work. Perhaps you can suggest why.
But, paragraph numbering will work well, and, I guess what I do not
understand is what planet is the sky going to fall if Chief Justice
Rehnquist were to place paragraph numbers in his opinions.
Gregg, give it up on government bashing (you work for the government too,
it seems).
Anyway, why do we just not create the following "virtual" page. It will
be determined by the author of the opinon who will be encouraged to make
the "virtual" page the size of one paragraph whether the paragraph is
long or short, except where it would not be appropriate. Then we would
have "virtual" pages which would vary in length and would not interrupt
the flow of thought and would be medium neutral.
Alan Sugarman
HyperLaw
sugarman@panix.com
On Thu, 22 Dec 1994, Koster wrote:
> You still don't get it, Alan. Lexis pages are virtual in the sense that the
> page size was set at an arbitrary character size, but the important concept
> of "virtual" is that the page size *isn't important.* The beginning and
> ending of the page are what is fixed. Therefore any changes made after the
> initial version are accommodated within the already-existing page breaks.
> Some pages may become larger, some smaller, as revisions are made--but the
> page breaks continue to occur at the same points *so all cites to earlier
> versions remain accurate.* This is what makes "virtual" pages work exactly
> like paragraph numbers.
>
> I cited the S.Ct. star pages example to show that virtual pages are
> compatible with any format, not to make U.S. Reports the basis of my proposed
> method. It is precisely the incompetence of the publishers of U.S. Reports
> and most other official reports that gave John West the opportunity to serve
> the profession! No one wants to go back to reliance on official reporters.
>
> It is your proposal that runs the greatest danger of
> governmental-incompetence, because it expects the courts to begin doing
> something that they are not doing now (i.e., assign paragraph numbers). If a
> court issues a slip opinion without them, your whole process goes on hold
> until somehow official paragraph numbers get added.
>
> The best chance of making the new system work smoothly is to use something
> that already exists in the initial version of the opinion. Paragraph numbers
> do not now exist in slip opinions. Page numbers do. They aren't used for
> citation because the BlueBook doesn't like them, but they are available from
> Day 1.
>
> ***My proposal is to use the slip opinion pagination as the "virtual pages"
> for citation to any version.***
>
> *This provides all the vendor-neutral, technology-neutral benefits of
> paragraph numbers. If every publisher used these page breaks as star pages,
> then any version of the opinion in any medium could be cited in exactly the
> same way.
> *It is easier for the courts to apply than paragraph numbers (because all
> word processing programs contain automatic page-numbering capabilities; not
> all programs can number paragraphs automatically; and every discussion of
> paragraph numbering raises judgment issues about which paragraphs to number)
> and therefore more likely to be applied uniformly and in a timely fashion.
> *It would accommodate later revisions without distorting the numbering system
> or making cites to the earlier version incorrect.
> *And, most importantly to me, it does not raise the (possibly theoretical)
> issue of "judicial intent."
>
> No one can say at this point whether "judicial intent" is a real fear or a
> neurotic fantasy. I just don't see why we should find out the hard way when
> there is an alternative approach that completely avoids the risk while
> providing all the benefits that the revision set out to accomplish.
>
> Greg Koster
> CUNY Law School
>
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