Often it is said that “ignorance of the law is no excuse” for running afoul of the law. Citizens are expected to know and follow the law at all times. In our system of government, sources of law are derived from the constitution, statute, administrative regulations and judicial opinions, also known as case law.

But what if a citizen cannot freely or easily access the law to know what the law says? Can a citizen fairly be expected to obey the law if they cannot freely or easily access the law?

These questions may have been answered differently if the year was 1250 and the law reports included handwritten judicial opinions attributed to specific judges. Since the advent of printing in the 1470s, English case law has been printed and reported and made accessible to the people in large public libraries and law school libraries. By the 1990s, a new technology emerged which was every bit as ground breaking as the printing press: the internet.

Since 2003, the Colorado General Assembly has placed the state constitution and statutes online for citizens to be able to easily access codified law without having to go to a law library. Beginning in 1998, the Colorado Supreme Court has made available recent judicial opinions online. For older case law, the citizen’s ability to freely access these cases and judicial opinions is hit and miss, at best.

Lawyers and judges use expensive case law reporting services, such as Westlaw, LexisNexis, and Bloomberg, to be able to conduct legal research in a timely and orderly manner. These services provide proprietary- and copyright-protected annotations which make research efficient and comprehensive. Citizens should not be required to pay thousands of dollars to these companies to access the complete corpus of case law and likewise, an economically or geographically challenged citizen should not be required to drive to the state law library in Denver to access these cases. After all, judicial opinions belong to the public and are essential elements in understanding the meaning of the law.

Much like how the statutes are placed online for the people to have access to statutory law, we are proposing a similar e-portal that would allow the people to access every piece of case law online at no cost. This would include every judicial opinion from territorial days to present. This web site would be developed in connection with an experienced vendor for a modest one-time cost and require only nominal state resources to maintain on an ongoing basis. This is similar to what Alaska and California have done for their citizens.

Our proposal would give rural Coloradans, those who cannot afford to visit the state law library, students, pro se litigants/defendants and citizens wishing to be better informed the ability to access every judicial opinion of precedential value, free of charge, in a searchable format, from the comfort and safety of their own home.

We contend that in the modern era of law, citizens should have free and easy access to all the sources of law in our great state. Removing barriers to accessing the law will allow residents of our state to be more fully informed about ongoing legal and policy matters we all face.

Mike Weissman, an Aurora Democrat, represents District 36 in the Colorado House. He chairs the House Judiciary Committee and the Joint Committee on Legal Services. Matt Soper, a Delta Republican, represents District 54 in the Colorado House. He has served on the House Judiciary Committee and is the ranking member on the House Health and Insurance Committee.