Florida Supreme Court launches smartphone-friendly website

Grab your iPhones Xs, Pixels and Galaxy Notes: The Florida Supreme Court on Thursday debuted its first ever “smartphone-friendly” website.

“We were one of the first courts in the world to use the web starting in 1994,” Chief Justice Charles Canady said in a statement.

“Our new site continues a long heritage of transparency and openness in government that dates back to the 1970s when we became the first court system in the nation to open all of our proceedings to TV news cameras,” he added.

“It is our first website created with smartphones and wireless tablets in mind, and it keeps the Court at the cutting edge of digital public information services.”

Here’s more from the press release:

The new website, for example, integrates the Court’s social media channels and its archived argument broadcasts into the overall design of its pages and the case information.

The new site has major categories … organized into a navigation bar appearing near the top of the webpage on computers and on a ‘Menu’ tab on smartphones. That’s for written opinions and case information, among other things.

There are links to pending and archived high-profile cases, judicial discipline cases, death warrant filings, and other newsworthy topics.

The court was one of the first in the world with a website. By 1996, when the Court’s Public Information Officer was created, it began using its website to give the public and the press online access to opinions, briefs, and other documents.

In 1997, the Court pioneered the use of live and archived video streaming and satellite broadcasts of its oral arguments. And it continued the tradition of online openness earlier this year when it offered those same oral argument videos on Facebook Live for the first time.

Looking ahead, there are plans for an app in the next few months that will take Florida’s standard jury instructions and make them easy to use on wireless devices by lawyers, litigants, and judges in courtrooms.