The Supreme Court has updated its much-maligned, old-fashioned website (See the old website at the Wayback Machine). It has also changed its URL from supremecourtus.gov to supremecourt.gov

• supremecourt.gov.
• Changes for Court’s website, Lyle Denniston SCOTUS Blog (March 18th, 2010).

  The Supreme Court has now assumed management of its own website, retrieving it from the Government Printing Office.

• press release, Supreme Court, Office of Public Information (March 18th, 2010).

The Sunlight Foundation, which had suggested changes to the site last year, has some useful comments and suggestions for further change and links to more information:

• Supreme Court unveils new website: how does it look?, By Daniel Schuman, Sunlight Foundation Blog (03/18/10).

C-SPAN is offering a week of special programming about the Supreme Court October 4-11, each night at 9pm (EST).

This Sunday night, Supreme Court Week kicks off on C-SPAN with the premiere of our new feature-length documentary The Supreme Court: Home to America's Highest Court. Hear directly from all 11 current and retired Supreme Court Justices about the role of the Court, its traditions, and history. Tour the building and see the grand public spaces of this historic building, including the Great Hall and Supreme Court Chamber, and spaces only accessible to the Justices and their staff, such as the Robing Room and the John Marshall Dining Room. The rest of the week features more original Supreme Court programs, including interviews with the sitting and retired Justices, Supreme Court staff, historians, and journalists at 9 pm ET, Oct. 5 - 11. For video clips, a trailer, bonus material about the Supreme Court, and series information, visit www.c-span.org/supremecourt.

Some highlights:

Friday, Oct. 9
9 - 11:30 pm
Interviews with Justices Kennedy (9 pm), Ginsburg (9:40 pm), Scalia (10:20 pm), and O'Connor (10:55 pm)

Saturday, Oct. 10
9 pm - midnight
Interviews with Justices Sotomayor (9 pm), Thomas (9:40 pm), Breyer (10:30 pm), and Alito (11:25 pm)

Sunday, Oct. 11
9 - 10:40 pm
Interviews with Justices Roberts (9 pm) and Stevens (10 pm)

See the complete schedule for the week here: http://supremecourt.c-span.org/TVPrograms.aspx .

When it comes to transparency, Supreme Court's Web site is dark, by Aliya Sternstein, NextGov, (08/07/2009).

To find searchable and comprehensive databases of Court documents, the public must consult unofficial Web sites such as SCOTUSblog, Thomson Reuters' free legal information service Findlaw and its paid-subscriber service Westlaw.

The Library of Congress announced via their Twitter account, that:

LOC will capture tweets on #sotomayor for its web archives on the Sotomayor nomination. http://www.loc.gov/webcapture/

Here is a list of some of the latest web capture projects they are working on:

Supreme Court Nominations 2009

The Supreme Court Nominations 2009 Web Archive will be a selective collection of Web sites archived between June 2009 through the completion of the hearings process. Web sites collected will include materials produced by watchdog, public policy, and political advocacy groups, blogs and tweets, community and religious organizations, foreign and domestic news sources, educational and research institutions, and independent websites.
Collection dates: June 2009 through confirmation hearings.

Indian General Elections

The Library's Delhi Overseas Operations Office is documenting the ongoing process of India general election in 2009.

Presidential Transition During a Time of Crises Web Archive

Presidential Transition During a Time of Crises Web Archive will be a selective collection of Web sites archived between January 2009 and June 2009. Web sites collected will include materials produced by domestic and foreign political groups, community and religious organizations, advocacy groups, foreign and domestic news sources, and independent websites.
Collection dates: January 2009 - June 2009. The collection will be evaluated prior to completion and may be extended.

I would suggest they start archiving the tweets about the #iranelection (see earlier blog post) by James R. Jacobs.

SCOTUSblog has announced the release of a new statpack (9 page pdf) that shows the breakdown of how each Supreme Court Justice has ruled at the quartermark of the term.  One new statistic includes how often each Justice votes with the majority, both overall and in divided cases.  The idea is that these figures reflect a general, if imperfect, measurement of how often each Justice is presumably pleased with the outcome of the Court’s decisions. Justice Antonin Scalia is the only member of the Court to vote with the majority in every merits decision issued so far this Term.