United
States Supreme Court Opinions
| By: |
William S. Cramer, Assistant Professor
Government Docs. Coordinator and Special Collections
|
Phone: (248)
370-2480
E-mail: wcramer@oakland.edu |
Ask A Librarian
Feel free to call, email, chat, or stop by the reference desk if you have questions. |
The opinions of the United States
Supreme Court are available in both print (located in the
Government Documents Collection in the north wing of the second
level of Kresge Library) and electronic formats.
Print versions
of Supreme Court decisions appear initially as separate slip
opinions [Documents call number: Ju 6.8/b:]. To locate
these, a docket number must be obtained (for procedure, see
below). Slip opinions are retained by the library only until
the preliminary print version of the official reports of the
Supreme Court [Ju 6.8/a:] is received. Pagination and volume
numbers of the preliminary prints are identical to the final
bound volumes of United States Reports [Ju 6.8:]. Preliminary
prints are discarded once the bound volume is received.
Procedures for
Locating a Supreme Court Opinion in Print Format
A. If an opinion
has appeared in a final bound volume of United States Reports
(or a preliminary print), it easily can be located by its
legal citation. For example:
Roe v. Wade = 410 US 113
(410 is the volume number and 113 is the page number)
If the legal citation
is not known, certain parts of United States Supreme Court
Digest [Ref. KF 101 .U45] can be used to determine it.
If the litigants are known (i.e., Roe, the plaintiff, and
Wade, the defendant, were the litigants in Roe v. Wade), the
citation for the official opinion can be ascertained by using
the "Table of Cases" (volumes 14 and 14A), looking under the
case name Roe v. Wade. If only the defendant's name is know
(i.e., Wade, in this case), the legal citation can be located
using the "Defendant-Plaintiff Table."
If neither plaintiff
or defendant are known, the citation usually can be determined
by subject. The simplest approach is to use volume
15A of United States Supreme Court Digest, which is
entitled "Words and Phrases." This volume lists alphabetically
words or phrases which have been judicially defined in cases
indexed by the Digest. If this does not identify the
case you are seeking, you will have to use the other volumes
in this set, with topics arranged by "key number." It is not
always easy to find a specific case by key number, because
this is an updating service which includes references to new
legislation and new judicial developments under rather broad
topics. You may want to ask a reference librarian to give
you some assistance at this point.
B. If the opinion
has yet to appear in a format in which it can be located by
its legal citation, then it will have to be located by its
docket number (a number assigned at the time the case
is filed at the U.S. Supreme Court). The earliest official
version of the Supreme Court opinions received by Kresge Library
is called the slip opinion, and those are arranged
by docket number. Here's an example:
Eastern Airlines, Inc. v. Floyd, et al. = 990/89-1598
990 are the last three digits of the year argued, 89 is the
term year and 1598 is the docket number
The "year argued,"
term year, and "docket number" serve as part of the Superintendent
of Documents call number for slip opinions. The entire call
number for the case cited above would be: Ju 6.8/b:990/89-1598.
Supreme Court
Opinions in Electronic Format
There are several
electronic sources that provide access to Supreme Court opinions
and related information. These include:
A. GPO
Access (1937-75)
B. The
Oyez Project (leading cases since
1893)
C. Legal
Information Institute (historic
decisions 1990 to date)
D. U.S.
Supreme Court Web Site (1991 to date)
E. Lexis-Nexis
(under "Legal Research," all cases since 1790)
Availability off campus limited to OU students and staff.
BC:mj/rev.4/02