11 courts put criminal case files online

Eleven federal courts are letting the public access criminal case files online.The effort is part of a pilot program by the Judicial Conference of the United States to study privacy and public access to electronic files in criminal cases.Users can access the files through the federal courts’ Public Access to Court Electronic Records system for seven cents per page, Judicial Conference officials said.Information about PACER and participating courts can be found at pacer.psc.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/links.pl.Last September, the conference voted to make most civil and bankruptcy case documents available over PACER to the same extent they are available at the courts, officials said.The conference approved the pilot program in March and will review the findings in September 2003.