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When Judges Rely on Their Own Online Research
Courts and scholars have long debated the propriety of judges doing their own research and fact-finding, a debate that has intensified in recent years with the ease of internet research. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit has been at the epicenter of that debate.
The controversy boiled over last month in a split decision in which Judge Richard Posner cited his own, extensive Internet research in a prisoner’s civil rights suit. As the dissent put it, “this case will become Exhibit A in the debate” over whether appellate courts can “decide cases based on their own research on adjudicative facts.”
The suit, Rowe v. Gibson, involved an Eighth Amendment claim by a prisoner who suffered from gastroesophageal reflux. Prison officials had restricted the inmate’s access to Zantac, allowing him to take the medication twice a day but not at mealtimes. The plaintiff claimed that, as a result, he suffered severe pain and risked serious long-term injury. The district court granted summary judgment to the prison officials based on an uncontested affidavit from the prison doctor attesting that taking Zantac twice a day was a sufficient treatment.
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