Rory Perry: Court Webcasting

Headed to Wheeling for 17th remote webcast

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 19:51:29 GMT

I'll be headed to Wheeling in the morning to set up for the Court's Argument Docket scheduled for Thursday October 19th at 10:00 on the campus of Wheeling Jesuit University. As are all argument dockets, the proceedings will be webcast, even though the docket takes place in a remote location. The first remote oral argument webcast took place on October 23, 2001 from the Wyoming County Courthouse iin Pineville. Thursday's webcast will be the 17th remote webcast event since we started. Each has been a unique learning experience, and not always completely successful, but nevertheless an important component of maintaining open access to the courts.

New Hampshire Supreme Court Begins Webcasting

Fri, 21 Oct 2005 17:42:21 GMT

On Wednesday of this week, the New Hampshire Supreme Court began webcasting oral arguments. Both live and archived streams are available. As with most appellate court webcasts, camera placement can be tricky. The Union Leader reported: "The judges' faces appear blurred. Only the back of the lawyers' heads and shoulders are visible as they make the cases before the bench. But the arguments, questions and answers were clear." According to my informal count, New Hampshire makes fifteen state appellate courts with webcasts.

Disaster preparation for courts

Sun, 11 Sep 2005 15:47:39 GMT

I will be attending the Ninth Annual Court Technology Conference CTC9 in Seattle next week. Some of the educational sessions will be webcast, including a session called "The Technology of Disasters: What you can learn about Court Emergency Preparedness from Hurricane Battered Florida". In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the National Center for State Courts has created a resource clearinghouse to "allow courts throughout the country to volunteer equipment, personnel, and other resources to the courts in the disaster area."

And the SJC of Massachusetts makes fourteen

Mon, 02 May 2005 13:13:22 GMT

As Robert Ambrogi reports, the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts recently announced the debut of its oral argument webcast this week. The webcast is live right now, and an archive is not presently available. The list of webcasting appellate courts now numbers fourteen.

List of webcasting state supreme courts expanded from eleven to thirteen

Thu, 28 Apr 2005 15:05:59 GMT

The list of appellate courts providing webcasts of oral arguments has grown to 13, with the addition of New Jersey and South Dakota. I was recently interviewed by a reporter from the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press for an upcoming story on court webcasting. The RCFP tracks various public access issues, such as this recent update about camera coverage issues in various courts.

List of webcasting state supreme courts expanded from eight to eleven

Fri, 25 Jun 2004 20:51:21 GMT

Thanks to Walter Latham at the National Center for State Courts, who provided the updates, my list of webcasting courts has expanded from eight to eleven. Newly added are the Alaska Supreme Court (live and archive); the Vermont Supreme Court (audio archive only), and the Washington Supreme Court (live and archive, check search page for prior arguments).

While I'm told that the Connecticut Network webcasts oral arguments of the Connecticut Supreme Court, but I could not locate a schedule on the CT-N site or the Connecticut Supreme Court site.

The Michigan Supreme Court broadcasts arguments via "cablecast" on the statewide governmental affairs station: MGTV, but not via a webcast.

Ohio Supreme Court Webcast

Fri, 28 May 2004 20:57:54 GMT

By my count, the Ohio Supreme Court is now one of eight state supreme courts that webcast oral arguments. Ohio nicely integrates topical summaries of upcoming arguments right on the webcast page. My list of eight webcasting supreme courts may be incomplete -- drop me a line if you know of others.

Testing Fast Streaming with WM 9 series

Wed, 28 Apr 2004 17:57:03 GMT

I've been testing the West Virginia Supreme Court's oral argument webcast over the past two days with a relay provider that uses Fast Streaming with Windows Media 9 Series. The reviews thus far have been great. Instant-on if you have the bandwidth, more stable with less buffering. We have two more arguments today, beginning at 2:00 pm; see for yourself [With Fast Streaming | Without Fast Streaming >> Links are live this afternoon only!]

Tue, 23 Mar 2004 13:31:43 GMT

LIVE WEBCAST ~ 9/11 Commission public hearing. The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States holds a public hearing Tuesday and Wednesday in Washington DC on the formulation and conduct of U.S. counterterrorism policy, with particular emphasis on the period from the August 1998 e [JURIST's Paper Chase]

Thu, 19 Feb 2004 19:52:42 GMT

World Court to webcast Israeli security fence hearings. The International Court of Justice at The Hague announced Thursday that it will webcast live its hearings scheduled for February 23-25 on the legality of Israel's security fence. The Court's Information Department said:The Court has decided to provide vi [.JURIST's Paper Chase]

On today's docket

Tue, 27 Jan 2004 12:50:57 GMT

On today's docket, there are nine petitions to be presented on the Motion Docket. Immediately following the Motion Docket, the Court will hear argument in two cases:

Charles Kocher v. Oxford Life Insurance Co., No. 31539 - This action arises from a credit life and disability policy issued by defendant to plaintiff in connection with plaintiff's purchase of a truck. Plaintiff sued defendant seeking damages for breach of contract, statutory unfair claims settlement practices, and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. Following the trial court's entry of default judgment against defendant insurer as a sanction for discovery violations, a jury returned a damages verdict in favor of plaintiff in the aggregate principal amount of $39,012,039.60.

Loretta Wright v. Howard E. Myers, III, et al., No. 31550 - Plaintiff appeals from the circuit court's order dismissing this personal injury action as barred by the statute of limitations.

Today's proceedings begin at 10:00 am. Arguments are open to the public, and are accessible via the webcast.

Webcast goodies from John Udell

Mon, 01 Dec 2003 21:10:29 GMT

John Udell: "Granted I'm new to all this, but the whole streaming situation does seem like a bit of a train wreck."

While tinkering with a method to link to a specific point within a webcast, John Udell voices an appropriate bit of frustration with the balkanization of streaming services and protocols. I for one hope he figures it out. One application I can see for the courts is the ability to "cite" to a point in a stream, say, that contains a video deposition or court record. Court record vendors already tout this feature, but it comes at the price of using a vendor's proprietary indexing system while the stream is being rendered and/or stored. Creating SMIL files is tough to do when broadcasting live because timing changes are unpredictable. I've wondered if perhaps a real-time transcript (which would presumably contain an addressable index of some kind) could be tied together with the stream.

While he's at it, Udell delivers a short and understandable how-to and requirements list for low-end mobile webcasting (OS X laptop, camera, and Quicktime BroadCaster). Since I have access to such equipment and some time to test over the break, I'd like to debut a quicktime-powered stream for our (heretofore Windows Media-only) argument webcast when Court resumes on January 13, 2004.

Michigan Courts Use Webcast for Training

Mon, 10 Nov 2003 18:46:14 GMT

The Michigan state courts administrative office is using webcasting to deliver statewide training for court personnel on fees, costs and assessments in various court units. A resource page about the broadcasts, with links to printed material, is available here.

Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS X available

Mon, 10 Nov 2003 18:25:14 GMT

With the recent release of Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS X, certain compatibility issues I've written about before should be resolved. In addition, the new player includes plugins for IE and Safari.

Meanwhile, on today's docket . . .

Tue, 23 Sep 2003 12:38:52 GMT

While it may not compare to yesterday's en banc argument at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, (some coverage here, via Howard), oral arguments take place in all sorts of settings on all sorts of topics. For example, I'll be in the courtroom today (in my capacity as Clerk of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia) for oral argument in thirteen cases. (Last week I was in the courtroom until nearly 9:00 pm after a day of oral argument in eleven cases.)

The public is welcome. Argument starts at 10:00 am, and, as usual, the day's proceedings will be webcast live. There are some very interesting issues -- medical monitoring in a case against duPont alleging contamination of city drinking water in Parkersburg, WV (case #1 on the docket); ownership of coalbed methane in a dispute with wide-ranging impact between owners of the coal estate and owners of oil and gas leases (case #2 on the docket); and a certified question from the federal district court in the Northern District of West Virginia: "Under the West Virginia Unfair Trade Practices Act, specifically W.Va. Code §33-11-4(9), is an insurer liable to a third-party for the conduct of an attorney hired by the insurer, when that attorney is hired by the insurer to represent the insurer's insured, and when the attorney's conduct took place during and after the initiation of a civil action against the insurer's insured for legal malpractice?" (case #3 on the docket).

What's more, in between arguments the Court will meet to decide various motions in three pending cases that challenge aspects of a current plan to fund $200 million in economic development projects by issuing bonds backed by revenue from video lottery. Likely to be a busy day.

Windows Media Encoder 9 will work for some, not for others

Mon, 12 May 2003 20:35:43 GMT

I have the encoder up and running, and things are working fairly well. What I did learn is that Windows Media Player for Mac doesn't support WME9 content, and neither does Windows 95 and some earlier versions of Windows 98. Older players may work, but it's best to upgrade to Windows Media Player 9. Which means some of my users will have to upgrade the player to view the content, and some won't be able to see it at all.

Sigh. What I'd really like to do is build an alternative server that we keep in-house running Quicktime Streaming Server for Mac users and others who use Quicktime, and, more importantly, to provide an alternative to Microsoft. Also I'd like to provide an alternative version of the stream that will work with the older players, budget permitting.

Mon, 12 May 2003 12:47:51 GMT

From the FAQ page for WME9, here are the system requirements for my target audience:

To capture and broadcast audio and video files for 28.8 Kbps and 56 Kbps modems, (using the Windows Media Audio and Video 9 Series codecs), the minimum configuration is a 1.5 gigahertz (GHz) processor and 64 MB of RAM. For mid-bandwidth (100 Kbps to 500 Kbps) audiences, the recommended configuration is a 1 GHz dual processor or higher, Windows XP, and 256 MB of RAM.

Webcast Update

Mon, 12 May 2003 12:35:15 GMT

Today I will be switching over the internal webcast equipment to a brand-new machine with a new version of the software we use to encode the oral arguments -- Windows Media Encoder 9. The old P3, in use for nearly three years and equipped with an Osprey 1000 video card (no longer manufactured), finally went south during last month's webcast from Summersville. It performed well in various conditions over the years, with several trips in and out of my car for remote sessions outside of Charleston.

Lesson learned? Keep a spare video card, or even better, a whole spare encoder on hand for these emergencies. When it comes to live-only webcasting, you've only got one chance to get it right.

I'm new to WME9, but from first glance I think we'll be able to take advantage of some of the new features. I'll be moving the details of this narrative of the revamping process over to the court webcasting page of this weblog.

Webcast in Morgantown

Mon, 24 Mar 2003 20:38:30 GMT

I'm here at the WVU College of Law, where we completed preparations for tomorrow's webcast. Learn more about the docket here, and tune in to the webcast here. Following oral argument, the Court will judge the annual Baker Cup competition.

Harvard Law webcasts

Tue, 18 Mar 2003 15:41:58 GMT

Harvard Law School has a page with links to archive webcasts, including speakers like Ken Starr, Al Sharpton, and Sandra Day O'Connor, and events like the Berkman Center's 2002 Internet and Society Conference.

Wonted serenity and webcasting in Wisconsin

Tue, 18 Mar 2003 15:16:15 GMT

The Wisconsin Supreme Court has a webcast of the audio portion of oral arguments, which I've added to the list of courts that webcast. You can also read advance summaries of cases set for argument, or review the audio archive, which dates back to September 1997. Too bad we can't listen to the 1879 argument in the case of Miss Lavinia Goodell, the first female lawyer admitted in Wisconsin, after a lengthy court battle resulted in a 4-1 decision in favor of her admission. The dissenter, Chief Justice Ryan, apparently took a dim view of women in the legal profession. According to Miss Goodell, the Chief "bristled all up when he saw me, like a hen when she sees a hawk, and did not recover his wonted serenity during my stay. It was fun to see him! I presume I was the coolest person present."

Two more state supreme court webcasts

Wed, 12 Mar 2003 14:43:43 GMT

I've added the Supreme Court of Indiana and the Supreme Court of Missouri to my list of appellate courts that webcast oral arguments.

Were $215 million in development grants unconstitutionally awarded?

Mon, 10 Mar 2003 18:13:40 GMT

That will be the question on the table tomorrow at 2:00 pm when the Court hears oral argument in SER WV Citizen Action Group v. WV Economic Development Grant Committee, et al., No. 31125. The case concerns the procedures used to appoint a state committee and allocate $215 million in economic development grants for projects like a new baseball park for the Charleston Alley Cats and a new Victorian Mall development for downtown Wheeling. The Court previously granted the petition for appeal filed by the West Virginia Citizen Action Group, expedited the matter for consideration, and ruled on pending motions to intervene and/or participate in oral argument. All briefs and orders filed in the case are available at this link.

This oral argument should prove interesting, with participation by two amicus curiae and one intervenor. The entire proceedings will be webcast. The lineup at oral argument will be:

Larry Harless will argue on behalf of the petitioners, West Virginia Citizen Action Group
Robert Bastress, a constitutional law professor at the WVU College of Law, will argue on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, an amicus curiae in support of the petitioners
Kathy Schultz, Senior Deputy Attorney General, will argue on behalf of the WV Economic Development Grant Committee
Richard Gottlieb will argue on behalf of the intervenor, the Kanawha County Commission
Rosemary Humway-Warmuth will argue on behalf of the City of Wheeling, as amicus curiae in support of the respondents. (Wheeling was previously dismissed as a party by the lower court.)

Talkative lawyers create a nourishing thicket, or, Law is Free

Fri, 07 Mar 2003 19:24:20 GMT

One year ago today, I posted Law is Free, as an attempt to explain some of the underlying reasons for using broad publish/subscribe technology to put more legal information out there for free.

In the year since I wrote this story, I've grown more comfortable with the technology, and have added several new pages to the WV Supreme Court's offering of online information, each with its own RSS feed:
Recent Opinions
Civil Topics
Criminal Topics
Family Topics.
On the larger scale, we've seen wonderful growth in the quality, scope and timeliness of free legal content on the Web. During the past year, blawgs by law professors, legal scholars, journalists, appellate practitioners, law librarians, legal pundits, paralegals, law firms, international lawyers, trademark lawyers, law students, and law clerks have come online. (To read them all, check out Denise Howell's blawgroll--she coined the term "blawg", after all, and Ernie's Law Blawgs Outline.) Lawyers who can write code, or poetry, or design pages, or tell good stories, are all fastening quickly to the growing rubric of customized, smart and lively knowledge exchange. Outlanders no longer, blawgers have even been recognized by the American Bar Association.

Given all this, I have little doubt that more lawyers and legal professionals will continue the trend toward participation. And being a loquacious bunch, it's likely that our talking will have a beneficial side product: a deeper and more freely available body of knowledge about the law and its effects on our lives. That, I insist, is a good thing.

Updates, new relay provider, some specs

Fri, 14 Feb 2003 18:38:21 GMT

Earlier this week, in the hour before oral arguments were to begin on Tuesday, I switched over the relay provider we use for the Court's webcast. The switchover had little to do with quality of service, and more to do with proper documentation and invoicing. The downside of this problem for me is that I haven't had any access to server logs for some time. Other than referrers on the webcast entry page, it's difficult to tell how many users are tuning in with accuracy.

Speaking of webcast entry pages, I did encounter one technical hitch in the switchover. The new relay provider asked me to put the .asx file in the root level of our web site, and point users to that URL to launch the stream. (The .asx file is an XML file that contains information about the media stream, like its location on media servers, and any banners or links that go with it.) Well this did not work in IE on either Windows or Mac. The screen came up blank. After several attempts to fiddle with the .asx file, I simply used the URL of the media server as the URL for users on the launch page. This approach worked fine.

In case anyone is curious, here's some details on our webcast system. We're using Windows Media Encoder 8, running on a dedicated Pentium 3, Windows 98 machine with an Osprey 1000 video card for video input and a Crytal SoundFusion card for audio input. When in Charleston, the encoder sits in a protected area of our network, with direct fiber access straight to the Internet. When we go on the road, we take the encoder with us, and access the Internet at the host location (county courthouses and the law school). This is a fairly rugged setup, if you don't mind lugging a desktop PC around. Mine's been working under this configuration for over two years, which includes 8 load-outs at remote locations. I know that better all-in-one-mobile and rack-mount systems exist, but those systems are substantially more expensive.

To run a succesful webcast in this fashion, it's critical to keep in contact with network administrators on both ends. Firewall port numbers and IP addresses need to be exchanged between the encoder and the relay provider. We broadcast live only, so there's only one chance to get it right. Having ready access to technicians at both ends is crucial.