OpenVerdict brings court records and civic decisions into the public square. Read the actual filings, hear both sides of the argument, and cast your verdict on the cases and legislation that shape American life.
Free to use. No signup required to read. Built and maintained by a small team of civic-tech volunteers.
What Happens on The CourtRoom
Every case is sourced from primary records: federal and state court dockets, published opinions, FTC enforcement matters, and local legislation. No hearsay, no talking heads.
Structured arguments for the State and the Defense, with citations, replies, and the option to argue Devil's Advocate against your own vote.
Register just or unjust with a confidence level. Anyone can vote anonymously; signed-in users build a public record over time.
Verdicts, arguments, and citations become part of the public record on the case. Journalists, students, and attorneys cite what happens here. Sustained public deliberation is how systems change.
Now on the Docket
The prosecutor struck every Black juror, and an all-white jury convicted him.
Read the case & cast your verdictHe guarded federal buildings with a handgun, and the law forbade him from keeping one at home.
Read the case & cast your verdict127 days of one man's phone location history, pulled by the FBI without a warrant.
Read the case & cast your verdictVirginia sterilized a teenage rape victim, and the Court wrote that three generations of imbeciles are enough.
Read the case & cast your verdictWhen expert testimony is bought, and judicial discretion goes unchecked, lives are ruined in silence. OpenVerdict creates a decentralized layer of oversight. We believe that true justice can withstand public scrutiny.
Unlocking sealed records and transcripts for public view.
Holding courts accountable to logic, science, and ethics.
"We are not listening to the experts... we just going to decide." (Presiding Judge)
A short, structured path from opening a case file to registering your verdict.
Every case links to primary sources: the court docket, published opinions, filings, and the FTC or agency record. Community members can annotate what stands out.
The Deliberation Floor lets jurors post arguments on either side, cite outside authorities like Supreme Court precedent or federal statutes, and reply to each other.
Cast your vote as just or unjust with a confidence level. The rolling verdict, along with the arguments that changed the most minds, becomes part of the public record on the case.
The platform is used by students, journalists, attorneys, and citizens who want to engage seriously with the federal courts. Every argument, verdict, and citation is preserved as a public record on the case, and can be linked, cited, or shared.
Cases pull from CourtListener dockets and federal agency records. No secondhand summaries: the record is the source.
Arguments live on either side, support citations, and can be marked as Devil's Advocate so other jurors know it isn't your real position.
Every case, every argument, every juror's verdict gets a stable URL and can be cited in a paper, brief, or public conversation.
Defendant claims 4th Amendment violation during warrantless vehicle search. Evidence in dispute.
A multidisciplinary team of legal minds, technologists, and civic advocates united by a common belief: justice should be transparent.