Missourinet

Audio of MO Supreme Court Arguments now available

The Missourinet started streaming the oral arguments before the Missouri Supreme Court in late 1999. In addition to the live stream, we archived the arguments.

A few years ago --in an effort to cover some of our expenses-- we adopted a subscription model and maintained that until the court took over the service. They also stream the audio live and archive.

Last week we opened up our archives (no subscription required) and legal professionals --and the public-- have access to more than 800 arguments dating back to 1999.

Webcasts of Supreme Court arguments resume September 5

The Missouri Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on September 5th. This will be the first session of the court since they took over responsibility for streaming audo of the arguments.

Doesn't appear to be a link yet, but we're told this is the page from which you can listen to the arguments.

As of this posting, there's still a dated reference to our subscription service. For the time being, only our subscribers can access the archived arguments. In coming weeks we plan to open these up to the public. Watch this space for updates.

MO Supreme Court taking over oral arguments

The Missouri Supreme Court will hear arguments on May 22 and June 21 and then break for their summer recess. I mention it because it's something of an "end to an era." The Missourinet began streaming (and archiving) the arguments on December 14, 1999. The final three cases will take us to 812. A lot of the arguments were pretty dry stuff (if you're not an attorney) but there were some high-profiles cases that drew a lot of attention.

When the court resumes in September, they'll provide this service (at no charge). Our plan is to open up our archives at that point.They're currently available only to subscribers to our service. This is a good move and long overdue. We commend the court of stepping up and offering this service.

The Missourinet has been ahead of the curve on a few projects like this. We started and maintained Missouri State Highway Patrol Crash Reports for several years before handing it off the MSHP last year.

Legislature.com continues to operate as a subscription service, primarily because the (free) service offered by the House and Senate does not include archived audio. But they almost certainly will.

Here at Missourinet.com we take some pride at being among the first at offering this kind of content online. When we started streaming audio, nobody had broadband connections to the Internet. It was all modem and dial-up. But it worked. And while we didn't get rich with these services, we demonstrated the value of providing "rich media" to the public.

Missouri Supreme Court to stream oral arguments for free

Sometime after the first of the year, the Missouri Supreme Court will take over streaming of the audio of oral arguments before the court. The Missourinet has provided that service for the last five or six years. We didn't charge for the first five years and finally had to earlier this year. Just to cover some of the expenses.

A couple of weeks ago the court informed us they would begin making the audio available to one and all. This is a good thing for the public, the media and the legal community. And no great loss for us (we never made a dime on the service.)

If there's a down side, it's that only our current subscribers can listen online until the court takes over. And nobody seems to know just when that will be. As soon as we get more information, we'll post it here and on our Supreme Court page.

Oy yea, oy yea!

The Missouri Supreme Court begins hearing hearing cases next week (September 6) and Learfield will stream audio of the oral arguments. Earlier this year we made the switch from a free service to a subscription model ($99 a year). Legal professionals are pretty much the only folks that listened to these on a regular basis but anyone can subscribe. If you'd like to know more, ping us at info@Missourinet.com and include Supreme Court Arguments in the subject line. Or call Steve Mays at (573) 556-1209.

New and Improved Crash Reports

The Missouri State Highway Patrol is now posting crash reports on their website and it appears they've done a very nice job with the interface. You can search for a specific report (Name, County, Troop, Date, Injury or Fatal)...or you can browse reports by troop. The resulting list view is a nice,  table that can be sorted by any column and you can view full report with one click.

All in all, a big improvement on what we've offered since we began posting the reports. Of course, they redesigned from scratch to achieve all of these nice features. Our service has always been something of a hack and limited by how the data moved from MSHP to us.

It will be interesting to see what the public (and the media) thinks about the new service. If you have a comment, use the link below.

600+ Supreme Court Arguments

Factoid: We began streaming and archiving audio of arguments before the Supreme Court of Missouri on December 14, 1999. Our archive now has 637 cases in the database. There's some pretty dry stuff in there (unless you're a lawyer) but also a good bit of Missouri history. We recently converted to a subscription service ($99/yr) in a move to insure the project survives.

MO Supreme Court audio: Don't touch that switch!

Subscribers to our Missouri Supreme Court audio service missed the first 20 minutes of today's oral arguments (we'll have the missing argument archived later today or early tomorrow). This is almost "an act of god." There is a "kill switch" under the judges' bench. They can flip the switch and no audio streams from the chamber. From time to time, one of the judges bump the switch with a knee, which is what happened this morning. We usually have to wait until a recess for someone to slip in and turn the audio back on. We're working with the court staff to prevent this from happening again.

MO Supreme Court hears two death penalty cases next week

The Missouri Supreme Court will hear appeals in two death penalty cases next week. On Wednesday (Nov 30) they'll hear the case of State of Missouri v. Earl M. Forrest, a direct appeal of first-degree murder convictions and death sentences. On Thursday (Dec 1) the court will hear the case of State ex rel. Alis Ben Johns v. The Honorable Greg Kays, a challenge to the death penalty after a finding of mental retardation.

Supreme Court arguments $99 a year

The Missourinet has been streaming the audio of oral arguments before the Missouri Supreme Court for several years now (since 2000?). Time and again, we've tried to find a business or organization to sponsor or underwrite the cost of providing this service. The court, the state bar association, the law schools. No takers.

Before pulling this plug, we're going to try a subscription model and see if the folks that use the service value it enough to pay for it. $99 buys a one-year subscription that includes a live stream of the arguments and access to our audio archives, about five years of cases large and small. No idea what the response to this change will be, but we'll share it here.