Parts of an Opinion

Top of the page of the U.S. Reporter, the official place where United States Supreme Court opinions are reported. The name of the case is called the "style." Most reporters start with a synopsis of the case. DON'T quote or rely on the synopsis. It's just what some editor wrote. Editors don't set Supreme Court precedent. You can tell what the citation for this case is -- on the left page the reporter volume (420) is shown before the initials U.S.; on the right, the style of the case and the page number (469). So the citation is 420 U.S. 469.

On the page preceding the beginning of the opinion, there will be a "count." The editor will tell you who joined in the opinion, who concurred and who dissented. A justice who joins in the opinion does not write her own reasons why. A justice who concurs says he agrees with the outcome of the majority's ruling, but for different reasons. Often, he will write a concurrence outlining those different reasons. A justice may dissent, disagreeing with both the result and the reasoning. These are often the most interesting to read, but dissents DO NOT state the law. Only the majority (or plurality) opinion makes law. By the way, don't make the mortifying mistake of asking why all the Supreme Court members have names that begin with J. In the parlance of the court, J. stands for Justice.

Here's where the opinion actually begins, where it's safe to start quoting. The way you know? It says "Opinion of the Court" at the top of the column. Also, the text tells you who delivered the opinion of the Court, Mr. Justice White

One advantage of using the actual books in the law library, as opposed to printing your case from the computer, is that some of the law case reporters provide excellent guides for helping you find the part sof the opinion that are important to your problem. For instance, if your MLR were about content-based speech, you would see in the headnotes of this case that at boldface No. 6, the Court talks about content-based speech. You would then look through the opinion to find the boldface No. 6 (see next picture).

In the case above, you were looking for content-based speech references and the headnotes told you to look for boldface No. 6. Here it is in the text and you can see the Court is now writing about that aspect of the case.

At the end of the case, justices who have concurred or dissented in the case often publish their individual opinions. To concur means the justice agrees with the outcome (for instance, that a state law is unconstitutional) of the majority, but she agrees for a different reason. To dissent means to disagree with the majority's opinion. It is important to read these concurrences and dissents to fully understand the case. And in one instance we'll talk about in class, a dissent actually helped create the prevailing law. The single easiest way for you to tell you are reading a concurrence or dissent is that the writer will use the singular first-person pronouns (I, me, my). In the majority opinion, the Court speaks in plurals (we) or more often in third person ("the Court" or "the majority.")

Here's an example of how citations are inserted in the middle of a sentence in an opinion. Sometimes it helps to just read over these the first time you read the opinion, but they are important because you'll find that all of your team's cases may cite the same precedent. In this case, however, Justice Rehnquist is not quoting precedent because he's quoting a dissenting opinion in a previous case. Dissents and concurrences don't set precedent.

Here's a U.S. Court of Appeals case, from the D.C. Circuit, or District of Columbia. Note how the citation differs. The reporter of these cases is the Federal Reporter, abbreviated in your citations as F.2d or F.3d.

Further down the page, you can see the history of the case, that it began in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. Notice that this case is not heard before nine Justices, but rather three judges. Sometimes there are more judges at the appeals level; sometimes there is only one.

Here's a case from District Court, the trial level, in the Western District of Missouri. Because Missouri and Arkansas are in the same federal circuits, if this case had been appealed, the precedent set would apply to federal cases in Arkansas. Judges rarely write an opinion at the trial level. The important thing to remember is that even if a judge does write an opinion at the trial level, no precedent is set. Precedent is only set at appeals level and higher.

Here's an example of a citation from a state case. Many of our cases will have been heard not in federal court (as all of the above were), but in state court. Keep that in mind as you think about precedent, upon which courts the law will be binding.

Here's why I recommend reading your cases in a book rather than on the computer. I think it's confusing when the flow of the opinion is broken by footnotes, but if that doesn't bother you, it doesn't matter to me whether you read your case online (or print it from there) or get it from the reporter. You do, however, need to know what reporter it would be published in, not just that it's on Lexis.