Frequently Asked Questions

No.  Sealed documents, including sealed indictments, are not available to the public and cannot be found on PACER. 

When transcripts of court proceedings are produced, they are added to PACER 90 days later. Before a transcript is added to PACER, a copy is available in the clerk’s office for inspection only. Information on purchasing a transcript from the court reporter or transcriber within the 90-day can be provided by the clerk’s office. There is no maximum fee for transcripts in PACER. 

The Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER) service provides electronic public access to federal court records. PACER provides the public with instantaneous access to more than 1 billion documents filed at all federal courts.

Registered users can:

• Search for a case in the federal court where the case was filed, or
• Search a nationwide index of federal court cases.

The PACER Service Center can assist you at (800) 676-6856 between the hours of 7 a.m. and 6 p.m. CT Monday through Friday or by email at pacer@psc.uscourts.gov.

In district and bankruptcy courts:

Electronic access to Social Security Administration case documents is limited to parties in the case. In addition, documents from criminal cases filed prior to November 1, 2004, are only available electronically to the parties in the case. Contact the clerk's office for information about viewing copies. Criminal documents filed after November 1, 2004, are available electronically through PACER.

In appellate courts:

Viewing certain document types (social security and immigration) in an appellate CM/ECF court may be restricted.

Look for a few of these common problems:

• If you have a legacy PACER account, your username should be entered in lowercase letters followed by four numbers. If you have an upgraded PACER account, enter the username you selected that is 8 or more characters long.
• Make sure the proper username and password are being used for the proper database. If you have a legacy PACER account: PACER login for querying documents and CM/ECF login for filing.
• Confirm you are using the live database. The training database is located at: https://ecf-train.COURT.uscourts.gov, while the live database is at: https://ecf.COURT.uscourts.gov (without the train), where COURT is the code for the particular court. Typically, appellate courts do not have training databases.
• The browser needs to be set to accept all cookies and must be JavaScript-enabled.
   

The second login prompt is requesting your PACER username and password, which is required whenever you request a report or document from a case while logged in as an electronic filer. To avoid getting the second login prompt, you can store your PACER username and password. To do so, when you enter your PACER credentials, check the checkbox “Make this my default PACER login” on the CM/ECF login page. After checking this box, you will only need to use your CM/ECF credentials for electronic filing and for viewing documents via PACER.

In general, an associated case is a case the court has identified as related to another case.  Typically, these cases may involve the same, similar, or related issues of law.  If applicable, associated case(s) will appear in the Applied Case Selection box on the File a Document screen.  A filing may be submitted in all or some of the associated cases listed.  If all associated case(s) are deselected, the filing is only submitted to the lead case.  Tip:  When submitting a filing, the case(s) to which the filing applies is displayed on the filing screens.