This page is dedicated to providing tutorials for locating court documents at the federal and state levels. It provides tutorials on resources to use that are public and free and some sources require a paid subscription, which can often be used through a library subscription.
Many of the subscription base sources listed on this page, and the rest of this guide, are only accessible to CSU faculty, staff, and students. However, if you are looking for a source and are not affiliated with CSU, send us an email anyway. We may still be able to help you get the information you are looking for.
Department of Justice - State and Federal Courts - Locate all of the state and federal level court websites.
Scroll down and select the state and local level court or click on the 'Pennsylvania's Unified Judicial System.'
In this example, I clicked on the Pennsylvania Superior Court link. The image below is the homepage.
Many states have a section of their court website dedicated to cases that a clear indication of public interest. Pennsylvania's Superior Court website has a 'Cases of Public Interest' webpage. The 2020 Presidential Election has a link noted by the arrow in the image.
'IN RE: 2,349 BALLOTS IN THE 2020 GENERAL ELECTION (ALLEGHENY)' was selected as an example. Below shows all of the court documents related to the case.
PACER is a database to locate court documents from the federal court system. Within the database, you can view all documents related to a particular case that is publicly accessible. Below is a brief tutorial on how to search for a federal case when you know the case number.
For accessibility, the downloadable PPT and PDF files are below that contain alt-text for images.
