The D.C. Circuit was quiet this week. It issued just one short opinion about criminal law.* So I’ll take a moment to discuss something I’ve been thinking about lately: agency websites.

Yesterday, the Administrative Conference of the United States adopted recommendations relating to “Public Availability of Adjudication Rules.” The recommendations were prepared by an ad hoc combination of the Adjudication Committee (chaired by Nadine Mancini) and the Administration and Management Committee (chaired by me).

The final version of the recommendations will be available soon. Here, however, is a pretty good approximation of what the recommendations will say (this was the proposed text):

The appendix also includes examples:

Agency websites may seem like a small thing in the world of administrative law. And in some ways, that is true. But in terms of increasing fairness and helping folks solve problems, this strikes me as a great first step that I hope agencies implement. Todd Phillips, the Staff Counsel for this project, deserves a lot of thanks. The same is true for the rest of the ACUS team and the (fantastic) members of the two committees who worked on this project. I learned a lot and I appreciate everyone’s hard work.

And with that, have a great weekend.

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* In United States v. Durrette, Judge Henderson — joined by Judges Srinivasan and Edwards — affirmed a criminal conviction. “Following a seven-day trial, a jury convicted James Durrette of conspiracy to distribute, and conspiracy to possess with the intent to distribute, 100 grams or more of a mixture and substance containing a detectable amount of heroin.” The question on appeal was whether the evidence was sufficient to support that “100 grams” quantity. The Court affirmed: “Lawson repeatedly testified that he took 100 grams of heroin from the stolen kilogram and gave it to Durrette.”

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