Court calendar
Encyclopedia
A docket in the United States is the official summary of proceedings in a court of law
Court
A court is a form of tribunal, often a governmental institution, with the authority to adjudicate legal disputes between parties and carry out the administration of justice in civil, criminal, and administrative matters in accordance with the rule of law...

. In the United Kingdom in modern times it is an official document relating to delivery of something, with similar meanings to these two elsewhere. In the late nineteenth century the term referred to the large folio books in which clerk
Court clerk
A court clerk is an officer of the court whose responsibilities include maintaining the records of a court. Another duty is to administer oaths to witnesses, jurors, and grand jurors...

s recorded all filings
Filing (legal)
In law, filing is the act of submitting a document to the clerk of a court for the court's immediate consideration, for storage in the court's files, or both. Courts will not consider motions unless an appropriate memorandum or brief is filed before the appropriate deadline...

 and court proceedings for each case, although use has been documented since 1485.

Today, in most industrialized countries such records are kept in the form of computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...

 database
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

s.

Historical usage

The term originated in England; it was recorded in the form "doggette" in 1485, and later also as doket, dogget(t), docquett, docquet, and docket. The derivation and original sense are obscure, although it has been suggested that it derives from the verb "to dock", in the sense of cutting short (e.g. the tail of a dog or horse); a long document summarised has been docked, or docket using old spelling. It was long used in England for legal purposes (there was an official called the Clerk of the Dockets in the early nineteenth century), although discontinued in modern English legal usage
English law
English law is the legal system of England and Wales, and is the basis of common law legal systems used in most Commonwealth countries and the United States except Louisiana...

.

Docket was described in the The American and English encyclopedia of law as a courts summary, digest, or register. A usage note in this 1893 text warns that term docket and calendar are not synonymous.

A 1910 law dictionary states the terms trial docket and calendar are synonymous.

United States

In the United States, court dockets are considered to be public records
Public records
Public records are documents or pieces of information that are not considered confidential. For example, in California, when a couple fills out a marriage license application, they have the option of checking the box as to whether the marriage is "confidential" or "Public"...

, and many public records databases and directories include references to court dockets. Rules of civil procedure
Civil procedure
Civil procedure is the body of law that sets out the rules and standards that courts follow when adjudicating civil lawsuits...

 often state that the court clerk shall record
Document
The term document has multiple meanings in ordinary language and in scholarship. WordNet 3.1. lists four meanings :* document, written document, papers...

 certain information "on the docket" when a specific event occurs. The Federal Courts use the PACER (Public Access Court Electronic Records)
PACER (law)
PACER is an electronic public access service of United States federal court documents. The system is managed by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts...

 system to house dockets and documents on all federal civil, criminal and bankruptcy cases, available to the public for a fee.

The term is also sometimes used informally to refer to a court calendar
Calendar
A calendar is a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months, and years. The name given to each day is known as a date. Periods in a calendar are usually, though not...

,
the schedule of the appearances, arguments and/or hearings scheduled for a court. It may also be used as a metonym to refer to a court's caseload as a whole. Thus, either sense may be intended (depending upon the context) in the frequent use of the phrase "crowded dockets" by legal journalists and commentators.

Supreme Court

In its meaning as calendar, the docket of the United States Supreme Court is different both in its composition and significance. The justices of the Supreme Court have almost complete discretion over the cases it chooses to hear. From the large number of cases which it receives, only 70 to 100 will be placed on the docket. The Solicitor General
United States Solicitor General
The United States Solicitor General is the person appointed to represent the federal government of the United States before the Supreme Court of the United States. The current Solicitor General, Donald B. Verrilli, Jr. was confirmed by the United States Senate on June 6, 2011 and sworn in on June...

 decides which cases to present on behalf of the federal government.

Official

Supreme Court

Court of Appeals
Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER
PACER (law)
PACER is an electronic public access service of United States federal court documents. The system is managed by the Administrative Office of the United States Courts...

) is a system for public access to court records, subject to payment.

Federal District Courts
Iowa

Unofficial

  • FreeDockets.com provides dockets for the U.S. Supreme Court, the U.S. district courts, the U.S. bankruptcy courts, the U.S. courts of appeals, the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, and the U.S. Court of International Trade.
The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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