Chief Justice John Roberts, 2014 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary

"[While pneumatic tubes were invented in the 19th century] news of this dawning era was slow to reach the Supreme Court. It was not until 1931 that the Marshal of the Court proposed installing a pneumatic tube system in the Courtroom [for delivering print copies of new opinions to the press]....The Court’s pneumatic age ended in 1971, when Chief Justice Burger authorized the removal of the pneumatic tube system....The Supreme Court is currently developing its own electronic filing system, which may be operational as soon as 2016. Once the system is implemented, all filings at the Court —petitions and responses to petitions, merits briefs, and all other types of motions and applications— will be available to the legal community and the public without cost on the Court’s website."