Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases/Archive 5

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Featured and Good articles

I've noticed that only three one Supreme Court case article have achieved is at Featured status, (Roe v. Wade, Lawrence v. Texas, Dred Scott v. Sandford) and only five others have achieved Good status (Brown v. Board of Education, Brown v. Hotel and Restaurant Employees, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, Jacobson v. United States, and NLRB v. J. Weingarten, Inc.). That seems a little low to me. Are there any cases we can identify that are likely to achieve Good or Featured status sometime soon so a collaboration could push them over the top? Also is anyone good at making article quality assessment boxes such as the one at Wikipedia:WikiProject_Law#Assessment? This page could use one. --Cdogsimmons (talk) 17:49, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Let me start by suggesting a few very significant cases which are in OK shape: Korematsu v. United States, Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer, Bush v. Gore, and Marbury v. Madison. Also, I notice that Lawrence v. Texas and Dred Scott v. Sandford have lost featured article status. --Cdogsimmons (talk) 18:18, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Let me also suggest Lochner v. New York and McCulloch v. Maryland.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 18:29, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Oh, and one of the most interesting cases I've encountered in law school, Buck v. Bell.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 18:35, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

There's also an ongoing project to push the Learned Hand to FA status. Details here. I'll be able to help out more with this in June or July, but not right now. Sorry!--chaser (away) - talk 18:52, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

Quite a few of the case articles have now been assessed for class (importance is little bit unclear) and I suggest that we start making the necessary assessments of B class articles from the quality assessment box to see if we can identify GA, A, and eventually FA class articles. If you see an article that should be nominated as a GA you can add it to the list here and if you see an article that should have featured status you can add it here. --Cdogsimmons (talk) 23:12, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

We have a problem. Many of the articles on SCOTUS cases lack specific citations and have failed reviews because of it. Many of the formerly featured articles were demoted for this reason as well. I nominated Kelo v. City of New London, Korematsu v. United States, and Gonzales v. Raich for Good Article status and they all failed because of lack of citations (as well as some npov issues). So I guess we have our work cut out for us. Any suggestions?--Cdogsimmons (talk) 16:59, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

The project as a whole has become pretty quiet... Not really what to do about that larger issue. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:32, 6 June 2008 (UTC)

Jencks v. United States

Could somebody cognizant (law is totally not my field) have a go at giving this current DYK a proper organization? The current one is all kinds of wrong. Circeus (talk) 01:57, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Wikiproject Prisons

If anyone's interested, I've proposed a new wikiproject for the creation of articles regarding specific prisons here. --Cdogsimmons (talk) 20:49, 8 June 2008 (UTC)

Members

How many of the members of the project are lawyers? JeanLatore (talk) 20:50, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

(Roll call?) I am. Postdlf (talk) 21:06, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

Woot. IP lawyer here. bd2412 T 06:19, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Rsradford (talk) 22:02, 25 June 2008 (UTC)

Template:WikiProject SCOTUS

I have made a change to Template:WikiProject SCOTUS in an effort to remove all the "lists" from Category:unassessed U.S. Supreme Court articles. However, as my understanding of template syntax and ParserFunctions is limited at best, this may break the template, so please review my changes and revert them if they are wrong. Bwrs (talk) 01:42, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

C-class

I noticed that after I made the above change, the banner no longer supports C-class articles. Can somebody please fix this, or show me how to fix it? Thank you. Bwrs (talk) 02:16, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

lists

I have noticed that the various lists of United States Supreme Court opinions are fairly well-done. Would anybody like to nominate any of them for WP:FL? Bwrs (talk) 02:32, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Open Jurist

There seems to be a concerted effort to add openjurist.org links to various pages, which is a bit unnerving, but seems fine for the external links section. The larger issue becomes when the links are in every line of the page text. Really, I'd like to know what's going on here. Open Jurist seems to have appeared out of nowhere, without as much as an about page. Before 554 pages are drowned in links to the site, I'd like at the minimum an assurance that the site isn't going to go offline in two days and leave us with a massive amount of cleanup to do. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:44, 3 July 2008 (UTC)

cat. of articles

Look, the categories are all fucked up. First of all, I really don't believe there is a "C" class. If some people decided to create one they certainly did not tell the rest of us. Second of all, the grid on the main project page has a line for "C" class, but not for "A" class. Next, some ranking scale I saw on the categories had "GA" between "B" and "A" and something called "FL class" which i have no idea what that is! JeanLatore (talk) 04:21, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

FL class is featured list class. There was a discussion about adding a C class; I guess this means they decided to go forward with it? The relevant discussion is here and in the archives of that page. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:25, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Changes to the WP:1.0 assessment scheme

As you may have heard, we at the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial Team recently made some changes to the assessment scale, including the addition of a new level. The new description is available at WP:ASSESS.

• The new C-Class represents articles that are beyond the basic Start-Class, but which need additional references or cleanup to meet the standards for B-Class.
• The criteria for B-Class have been tightened up with the addition of a rubric, and are now more in line with the stricter standards already used at some projects.
• A-Class article reviews will now need more than one person, as described here.

Each WikiProject should already have a new C-Class category at Category:C-Class_articles. If your project elects not to use the new level, you can simply delete your WikiProject's C-Class category and clarify any amendments on your project's assessment/discussion pages. The bot is already finding and listing C-Class articles.

Please leave a message with us if you have any queries regarding the introduction of the revised scheme. This scheme should allow the team to start producing offline selections for your project and the wider community within the next year. Thanks for using the Wikipedia 1.0 scheme! For the 1.0 Editorial Team, §hepBot (Disable) 21:28, 4 July 2008 (UTC)

Acceptance

JeanLatore noted their opinion about the use of the new C-Class. I was wondering if that statement reflected that the project will not use C-Class or if it is still under debate. I ask becasue your template supports C-Class right now and I was going to remove the ability to use it if you guys don't want it. Thanks for your time. §hep • ¡Talk to me! 03:37, 6 July 2008 (UTC)

Red Links

Hello folks: I've made extensive edits to the article on the Preamble to the United States Constitution and, in my referencing work, I've noticed a ton of red links. I have simply been devoting myself to other pursuits and have no plans at this time to write up articles on each of these cases, but I thought I might draw your attention to it if people associated with this who have experience writing up case summaries might like to work with it. It would arguably be a more focused and useful way of "filling in the gaps" than simply starting from the beginning of the United States Reports and moving forward (that is to say, with the cases I've Wikified, we know there's at least 1 article on Wikipedia referring to them, which can't be said of a lot of the old-timer cases from the 19th century). Just a thought. MrArticleOne (talk) 08:06, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Spelling of case names containing foreign names

I recently moved Johnson v. Eisentrager to Johnson v. Eisenträger, because that's how the appellee's name (a German named Lothar Eisenträger) is spelled. Now 220.255.114.249 protested against the page shift on my talk page:

“Stop with the supercilious meddling with Eisentrager which you incorrectly misspell as "Eisenträger." NO case book spells it the German way. This is an American case, with American spelling which is consistent across the board. You don't change the spelling just because you think it looks wrong from your German perspective. Many immigration cases in American law often misspell foreign names. You don't "change" it to the "right" spelling just because you think or know it's the "right" spelling. It's standard practice to let the Anglicization of the name stand so as not to cause further confusion later. The official version is Eisentrager -- NOT Eisenträger, and that's that. Your overzealous "correction" of German names in American case law is wrongheaded, pernicious, and unhelpful.”

I am not sure whether there is a naming convention on this, however 220.255.114.249 is not correct with saying ‘American spelling is consistent across the board’, because Adarand Constructors, Inc. v. Peña or Medellín v. Texas use special characters as well. So do we spell foreign names correctly with special characters or should we use "American spelling"? ––Bender235 (talk) 15:13, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

That's not what I meant. What I meant was that the "American" spelling of Eisentrager is consistent across the board -- Eisentrager, and not Eisenträger. As far as I'm aware, Medellin v. Texas is a mixed bag. Briefs for Texas and the petitioner used Medellín, whereas amici used Medellin, without the accented í. The slip opinion of the Court itself confuses things by using the unaccented "MEDELLIN" in its header while using the accented "Medellín" in the body. I wouldn't be too sure either way until the case comes out in U.S. Reports or other official case reporters. Certainly I would err in the direction of linguistic accuracy if both forms are used. But if there's no ambiguity and casebooks spell a name one way only, then it shouldn't be "corrected" even if it's "erroneous" from the point of view of linguistic purists.220.255.112.52 (talk) 22:14, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Findlaw uses "Eisentrager", which indicates that the records probably do as well. I'd stick to whatever spelling is in the books, but that's a personal preference and I can't find a policy about it. --Wikiacc (¶) 15:37, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

The articles are about the court decisions, not the parties, and the name of the case is how the Court's reporter entered it. There's simply no room for argument there. Even if it were a blatant misspelling in the caption, that's a matter for noting within the article: see Minersville School District v. Gobitis. Postdlf (talk) 15:52, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree with Wikiacc and Postdlf completely. There are more than a few cases where the reported case completely mistakes the name of a party (the 1983 case of Midway v. Strohan comes to mind - the defendant was actually named Slayton, not Strohan, but the case was filed that way and never corrected, so it is cited that way to this day). Not our job to correct a court's mistakes. bd2412 T 16:00, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Perhaps the most high-profile instance is Dred Scott v. Sandford; the right spelling was Sanford. MrArticleOne (talk) 19:43, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

So that means Peña should be Pena, Medellín should be Medellin, and Eisenträger should be Eisentrager, right? ––Bender235 (talk) 21:32, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

Yes, all should be moved to the official name of the case. bd2412 T 21:48, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I believe Medellín had the accent mark in the official reporter. You're going to actually have to check the opinion to see, there's no absolute rule either way. MrArticleOne (talk) 22:10, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

The name as set forth in the opinion itself (at least as relayed by Lexis) is in all capital letters, which might account for the absence of an accent mark, but the handful of later citations in cases and law reviews have no accent. bd2412 T 23:08, 13 July 2008 (UTC)

I may be mis-remembering, it was just a glance at an advance sheet. MrArticleOne (talk) 00:20, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

See Medellin v. Texas slip opinion. The Court uses Medellín within the text of the article to refer to the petitioner, but in the case name and caption it is styled Medellin. As the omission from the caption then seems deliberate, this makes me wonder whether there might be a rule of practice, whether in SCOTUS rules, the FRCP, or the Bluebook, to generally avoid diacritics in case captions. Postdlf (talk) 21:53, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Articles flagged for cleanup

Currently, 1940 articles are assigned to this project, of which 250, or 12.9%, are flagged for cleanup of some sort. (Data as of 14 July 2008.) Are you interested in finding out more? I am offering to generate cleanup to-do lists on a project or work group level. See User:B. Wolterding/Cleanup listings for details. Subscribing is easy - just add a template to your project page. If you want to respond to this canned message, please do so at my user talk page. --B. Wolterding (talk) 18:46, 21 July 2008 (UTC)

Help me put articles on the proper SCOTUS case lists! Please!!!

Hi everyone, I made up a list of of U.S. Supreme Court case articles which have not yet been added one of the appropriate Lists of United States Supreme Court cases.

The list is located at User:Eastlaw/pagelist. I have, in the past, added a whole bunch of articles to the lists, but this is more work than one person can do by him/herself. If everyone could do just a few cases (or even just one or two) each day, we could eliminate a lot of the articles on this list.

Likewise, if anyone here stumbles upon an article which is not on the appropriate list, but isn't listed on my page either, please add it to my page (or just list it on the appropriate case list). Thanks. --Eastlaw (talk) 05:24, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Are you more interested in having them put in the list or do you also want the summaries written? I can probably get them into their proper places if you'd be willing to write (or copy and paste) the summaries. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:34, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

The summaries can be added later, if that would make the work quicker. I'm more interested in just getting them sorted and listed. I (or anyone else, for that matter) can go find the cases without summaries and add the summaries in at a later time. --Eastlaw (talk) 07:18, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

I pulled the data on the first half of the list. I'll do the rest in a bit. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:56, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch to everyone who is helping out. I know a couple of non-SCOTUS cases were on this list--sorry about that, it was purely a clerical error that those were in there. --Eastlaw (talk) 21:18, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

State of the WikiProject

User:Skyler1534, the WikiProject's founder (or something), is apparently inactive again. As a whole, this WikiProject seems to be pretty dead. We still haven't developed a clear outline for what a good SCOTUS article should look like. And the project page is a cluttered mess that looks pretty awful. I'm willing to help clean up some of this if others are willing to as well. Is there interest to revitalize this WikiProject and start collaborating more? --MZMcBride (talk) 22:47, 24 July 2008 (UTC)

I will try to help out where I can. The legal articles in Wikipedia definitely need some work. Remember (talk) 02:48, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

Same here. Rsradford (talk) 16:53, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

We might get some useful collaboration going by choosing an article from the #Featured and Good articles section above and designating it the project collaboration article. I would work on one. I suggest just choosing one unilaterally using your good judgment. I'll do so in the next few days if you don't get around to it.--chaser - t 16:55, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Kelo v. City of New London is my top choice. My second choice is Lawrence v. Texas, as it lost its featured article status. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:25, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I would support either case, but I think Lawrence v. Texas may be easier at first since it was once a FA. Remember (talk) 12:42, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Kelo seems like a natural to me. I have a lot of resources on that case, and it's important enough to merit a much better article than presently exists, imo. Rsradford (talk) 15:28, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Individual volume lists

Following the thread above, I'd like to standardize (and largely template-ize) the individual volume lists, and add information to them. I took a random volume and converted it to the style I would like to use. Notably, it puts all of the cases in a table, allows for easy linking of the case citations, and adds a column for the decision date. My plan / goal is to standardize all 550-ish volumes, and I wanted input. Essentially, the lead, table, and the external links would all use templates ({{SCOTUSLead}}, {{SCOTUSExternalLinks}}, etc.). It would allow for much easier updating of all of the volumes in the future and has a few other benefits. In addition, Wikipedia could become a resource for decision dates for older cases, which can be incredibly difficult to find at times. Thoughts / comments / suggestions? --MZMcBride (talk) 05:33, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I like the idea and support it. Remember (talk) 12:38, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I would be in favor of the table but I don't see why you removed the links to the case articles. If the links to the case articles are going to be removed from the individual volume lists I am opposed to this "standardization." (Also, why are you removing links to the list from individual case articles without mentioning it in your edit summaries?)--Cdogsimmons (talk) 16:48, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The row is defined in Template:SCOTUSRow. For the case name, there needs to be two parameters for cases where the actual case name has a conflict. For example, Miller v. California, 392 U.S. 616 (1968). The case name is Miller v. California, but it will need to link to Miller v. California (1968). The parameters should be named "case name" and "case title", but I can't figure out which to make which. When I do, I'll add the link code to the template and the volume will then have links for each row. As to the other issue, I've responded on your talk page. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:19, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I changed the code to use {{{case name}}} and {{{case link}}}. If "case link" isn't defined, it defaults to "case name". --MZMcBride (talk) 18:43, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Can't we somehow merge those types of lists with the individual volume lists? ––Bender235 (talk) 18:24, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

No. Keep those separate. They accomplish very different things and require different organization. Postdlf (talk) 18:26, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I agree that those should be kept separate. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:43, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Question: Why not just make it a regular table instead of using the case row template? Remember (talk) 18:51, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

There are 550 individual volume pages. The hope is that once they're all using templates, it will make updating easier. So, for example, FindLaw contains case law for volumes 150–544. We could have those volumes link to FindLaw while the volumes 1–149 could link to OpenJurist. It would require one small edit to make the change rather than 544 large edits. It also keeps the code cleaner and more flexible. If we decided to merge cells or put the lists back into bullet format, it would again be one edit versus hundreds. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:02, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Adding volume links to the infobox

Cdogsimmons and I began a discussion about adding links to the volumes lists from the infobox after I mistakenly removed quite a few from various "See also" sections. As infoboxes already define {{{USVol}}}, it is trivial to add a link. Does anyone have any thoughts or suggestions as to where to put the link? --MZMcBride (talk) 18:47, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

I can see no reason why the link to the volume needs to be anywhere other than the infobox. bd2412 T 20:08, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

The original discussion was Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases/Archive4#Links to volume lists. The "vote" was 2–1 in favor of putting the links at the bottom of the page. I mis-interpreted the thread and began slowly removing the links. Cdogsimmons was understandably confused about this. I agree that it seems awkward to have them in the "See also" section. So the question is, how should we implement them into the infobox? --MZMcBride (talk) 21:02, 28 July 2008 (UTC)

Well, I (the "one" in that "2-1") punted in the end, but what you're proposing is a much better solution.--chaser - t 00:01, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Then it's decided. We'll move the links to the infobox. Now, where shall we put them? We could create a new place for the link, or convert another link already in the infobox into the link. There are pros and cons to both option. I guess I would be in favor of adding an independent link aside from the ones already there. It would be easier. (To MZMcBride: Sorry if I seemed to come down a little hard on you there. I'm a little stressed out. I had the NY bar exam today.) Peace.--Cdogsimmons (talk) 22:23, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

(unindent) Oh, no problem at all. Completely understandable. I took a look at Marbury v. Madison. The citations field currently reads:

5 U.S. 137; 1 Cranch 137; 2 L. Ed. 60; 1803 U.S. LEXIS 352

What about changing it to:

5 U.S. 137 (see more...); 1 Cranch 137; 2 L. Ed. 60; 1803 U.S. LEXIS 352

Obviously we can quibble about the whether it should "see more..." or "see full volume..." or whatever, but is the general idea decent? Pros: the link is visible but discreet. Cons: makes copy and pasting citations more difficult (not sure how many people do that from Wikipedia, though). --MZMcBride (talk) 22:41, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Why not

5 U.S. 137

? bd2412 T 23:23, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Yeah, I considered that as well. The only negative in my mind is that I think few people will see it or realize it's there. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:19, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

I think visibility outweighs copy-paste concerns, as the link is between citations; I'm guessing that most would copy citations for finding the full decision in the database of their choice, but I don't know for sure.--chaser - t 01:43, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Discussion seems to have died here, so I went ahead and added the MZM's second suggestion to the template. We can start removing the see also sections at leisure.--chaser - t 10:28, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Browning-Ferris Industries v. Kelco Disposal

I created an article about Browning-Ferris Industries v. Kelco Disposal, but it's getting late and I don't know when I'll have time to work on it again. (I'm also no legal scholar; it's just a case I remember hearding about when I lived in Vermont, as it's not too often that the Supremes have much to say about my home state.) It's actually an interesting-but-simple case about whether the Eighth Amendment limits punitive-damage awards (as contrasted with the recent punitive-damages decisions, based on other amendments). 121a0012 (talk) 05:46, 7 August 2008 (UTC)

Deletion of List of opinions from the Federal Reporter

If anyone's interested, some industrious person has been creating a complete list of opinions from the Federal Reporter but it has been put up for deletion. The discussion can be found at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of opinions from the Federal Reporter, Second Series, volume 178. --Cdogsimmons (talk) 17:26, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Bot request

All, I put in a request for a bot that could help automatically create pages for Supreme Court cases that have yet been created. The bot request is here [1]. I would be interested in hearing any comments or suggestions. Remember (talk) 10:32, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

Personnel Administrator MA v. Feeney

Anybody willing to give this DYK candidate a review? It needs at least a proper infobox, which I'm never clear how to fill. Circeus (talk) 19:51, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Feeney is a wonderful and important case. I would be happy to give it a look. How soon do you need this done? I'm a little busy at work right now. Non Curat Lex (talk) 21:27, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

I didn't do anything to the article (besides adding the "See also"), It's just obvious that it's rather incomplete for SCOTUS case article, and I tend to refer those articles to the project for review (I figure they'd like to have a look before it goes on MP). Most likely it'll roll on in 4-5 days. Circeus (talk) 23:41, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

The basic text is different. I'll get the infobox started soon. I think the article does need a fair amount of work. I also tagged it for WP:Law as well. Non Curat Lex (talk) 00:38, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I came here to make this exact request... and apparently it's covered :) Fvasconcellos (t·c) 13:01, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Infobox reporter standards

In May, I brought to the attention of this group the complete disarray that the "Citation" line of the Supreme Court infobox is in. At the time, I was directed to an earlier discussion of the matter driven by an obnoxious anonymous user, and that was the end of the discussion that I was involved in. However, I am prompted by 2 developments to bring it up again: 1. I recently saw an infobox (although I confess I do not recall which article) that listed the Oyez website as a "citation" for the case (exactly the sort of thing I was concerned would happen if we didn't have a clearly articulated standard!); and 2. the recent discussion on this board about the weakened state of this Wikiproject. I feel the two are related.

A little research reveals that the discussion with the anonymous user I referenced above was prompted by their attempt to unilaterally change these infoboxes to remove information from them that was not a traditional reporter. This work was then undone by the watchdogs involved in this Wikiproject, saying that if it were to be done, consensus should be reached here first. To the extent that this Wikiproject considers itself weakened or possibly moribund, it seems silly to demand that consensus be reached, but then provide no real forum (due to lack of interest) in which consensus can be reached.

However, I do not believe that this Wikiproject is moribund, which is why I am bringing it to your attention once again with the discovery of this Oyez "citation." To my mind, it is illustrative of the problems that inhere to having no clearly articulated standard that enjoys internal consistency. Up to this point we have apparently been using this technique: somebody copy/pastes the list of citations that are available on LexisNexis (but not, curiously, Westlaw). There is no principled basis for doing this; the reporting services that LexisNexis happens to have a contract with such that their citations work in LexisNexis' database to bring up the case have no particular claim to be included here (and neither would Westlaw's). It is particularly absurd to list the LexisNexis (or Westlaw) database serial number as an identifier; the only place that gets you anywhere is in the LexisNexis (or Westlaw) database, and the same information can be produced by typing in any of the other citations that are available in the infobox (that is to say, the serial number identifier communicates absolutely no useful information at all with a Supreme Court case).

I propose that we standardize this in a principled way. Anybody with the slightest legal background knows that there are 3 traditional reporters: United States Reports (the official reporter of the United States government), Supreme Court Reporter (an edited reporter with headnotes and research tools published by Thomson Reuters); and United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition (an edited reporter with headnotes and research tools published by "the competition," Reed Elsevier). In addition, it is extremely common to cite to United States Law Week (a weekly periodical published by the Bureau of National Affairs (BNA)) when a case is sufficiently recent that it does not appear in one of the first 3 sources on that list. You will have a hard time finding an example of any court, and especially any federal court (and, on top of that, especially the Supreme Court, which is what this Wikiproject is about) citing to any source other than one of those 4; conversely, courts routinely cite to the reporters on this list. Consensus and widespread usage in the legal industry is my argument for why those 4 (and only those 4) are a principled, coherent, and useful set of citation sources to use. MrArticleOne (talk) 14:39, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I disagree for reasons previously stated. Postdlf (talk) 14:56, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I would just as soon you not be so dismissive of this request given the Oyez development. I would at least like you to address my position in light of this new factual development. The relevant article is Carter v. Carter Coal Co. MrArticleOne (talk) 15:02, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

For example, in reviewing that debate, User:Lemonsawdust said they did not see the need for a codified rule right now. It seems to me that this Oyez development indicates that the need for such a codified rule has arrived, or else virtually any time the case appears on the web, it'd be appropriate to put that in the infobox. MrArticleOne (talk) 15:06, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Postdlf said that "[t]he citations we have used are the ones people are most likely to encounter." Have you ever encountered a citation to the Daily Journal DAR? Do you even know what it is? (I don't) Have you ever seen a court or brief cite to it? MrArticleOne (talk) 15:08, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

I see User:Postdlf deleted the offensive Oyez notation because it is "not a citation." But who is to say it isn't a citation? If the text of the opinion can be found somewhere, isn't it a citation in the broadest, most expansive definition of the word as is being endorsed by this Wikiproject? MrArticleOne (talk) 15:12, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

The "citation" to Oyez read as follows: "The Oyez Project, Carter v. Carter Coal Company, 298 U.S. 238 (1936)." Apart from the inclusion of the U.S. Reports cite, how is that a citation? It doesn't tell you where to find the case in Oyez. On Oyez, or similar online databases, I think MZMcbride's comments re: Findlaw in the original discussion, linked to above, are on point. Postdlf (talk) 15:19, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

It could have, though. Example: http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0298_0238_ZO.html. Boom. Link right to the text of the opinion. Should that go in the infobox as well? MrArticleOne (talk) 15:23, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Better example: http://supreme.justia.com/us/298/238/case.html. Whole case, right there. MrArticleOne (talk) 15:24, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

As for the point regarding a "citation system," this is a false dichotomy. Everything is a citation system; it can be a journal-title-page, or a URL, but either way, it's just a way to find a particular entry out of a larger set. MrArticleOne (talk) 15:27, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

using altlaw as well as findlaw

Altlaw is a new project started by Columbia Law School and the University of Colorado Law School to try to get case reports into the public domain. I was hoping we could integrate this website into the current Supreme Court Case template so that we can help direct users to advertising free public domain content. Any thoughts? Remember (talk) 11:37, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with linking to them, but their site seems a bit broken. For example, http://altlaw.org/cite/95%20U.S.%2010 doesn't work when it should be linking to the case Shaw v. Bill according to two other sites. In general, the infobox could use a sprucing up with regard to links to full texts and oral arguments. Perhaps I'll take a look at this in the next few days. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:53, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

SCOTUS opinion articles: about "the case," or about the SCOTUS decision?

Please see Talk:Personnel Administrator MA v. Feeney#"Case" vs. "decision". This might be pedantic triviality on my part, but I do think there's a difference in whether an article is about "the case," i.e., the litigation overall, or whether it's about the SCOTUS opinion rendered within a litigation. Postdlf (talk) 19:48, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Why can't it be about both? See, e.g., Roe v. Wade where the primary focus is on the Supreme Court's decision, but which also focuses on the case itself. Also, the very title of the project - implies a split focus on the Supreme Court and the "case". Note further that the Roe article states that it is a Supreme Court "case", not "decision". --Philosopher ^{Let us reason together.} 21:38, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia 0.7 articles have been selected for U.S. Supreme Court

Wikipedia 0.7 is a collection of English Wikipedia articles due to be released on DVD, and available for free download, later this year. The Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team has made an automated selection of articles for Version 0.7.

We would like to ask you to review the articles selected from this project. These were chosen from the articles with this project's talk page tag, based on the rated importance and quality. If there are any specific articles that should be removed, please let us know at Wikipedia talk:Version 0.7. You can also nominate additional articles for release, following the procedure at Wikipedia:Release Version Nominations.

A list of selected articles with cleanup tags, sorted by project, is available. The list is automatically updated each hour when it is loaded. Please try to fix any urgent problems in the selected articles. A team of copyeditors has agreed to help with copyediting requests, although you should try to fix simple issues on your own if possible.

We would also appreciate your help in identifying the version of each article that you think we should use, to help avoid vandalism or POV issues. These versions can be recorded at this project's subpage of User:SelectionBot/0.7. We are planning to release the selection for the holiday season, so we ask you to select the revisions before October 20. At that time, we will use an automatic process to identify which version of each article to release, if no version has been manually selected. Thanks! For the Wikipedia 1.0 Editorial team, SelectionBot 22:30, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

Template:Caselaw source

I just wanted to make sure project members were aware of this handy template, which I only noticed after seeing its addition to various articles pop up in my watchlist. Looks like a good way to collect and condense all external links to online sources that have the full text of opinions. Postdlf (talk) 21:58, 17 September 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for pointing that template out. Looks like it's making life a fair bit harder than it needs to be. I'll post to the template's talk page about cleaning up / simplifying the code. (Basically, you should only have to specify U.S. vol. and page. Specifying full URLs is gross.) --MZMcBride (talk) 08:56, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

---

Thanks to you both for noting it. I'd tried to generate some discussion of it at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Law so it could be cleaned up a bit before being used, and it was a surprise to me to see it in use already.

This is my first template, and I'm not completely happy with it. Two things in particular I don't like:

• I'd like to put that " · " character between sources, but not have it before the first source, but I'm not sure how to do that. The template documentation is somewhat opaque.
• I also frankly don't like my text. "Text of Foo v. Barr is available from" can surely be improved upon.

MzMcBride, I'd love to be able to generate the appropriate URLs from volume and page, but 1) the template was intended to cover non-SCOTUS cases as well as SCOTUS cases; and 2) not all resources use the info from the citation in the URLs, so there's no clear universal way of mapping that I'm aware of.

I welcome any improvements anyone wants to make to it. I can already see that LII would probably be added as a predefined repository. Interested editors, please discuss at Template talk:Caselaw source. TJRC (talk) 22:38, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Notability

As a new member of this project, I have a question before creating an article. Would every US Supreme Court case be considered notable? Thanks. XF Law (talk) 08:30, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

Yes. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:43, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

We should qualify that: every SCOTUS case is notable if a full bench opinion was rendered. Thousands of cases come to the Supreme Court that are disposed of by mere orders, such as by denying certiorari (i.e., the Court declines to hear the case) or by "GVR" ("grant-vacate-remand)" where the Court grants cert., vacates the judgment, without explanation beyond perhapsdirecting the lower court to reconsider in light of a new precedent (see a typical bound volume at p. 901 for examples). These are unremarkable as a whole and don't automatically merit coverage here. Postdlf (talk) 13:27, 18 September 2008 (UTC)

I should have been more succinct. My discipline is taxation, and there are many rulings that resulted in a precedent or modified an existing precedent, e.g. Complete Auto Transit, Inc. v. Brady, which do not have articles. Before I create an article, I want to make sure I save everyone the time of a deletion. Most of my knowledge is in due process or commerce clause. I'm happy to contribute, I just want to know the rules before I wreck something. XF Law (talk) 05:17, 19 September 2008 (UTC)

FYI new wiki SCOTUS project

I just thought the group should know about this - [2]. Remember (talk) 13:48, 24 September 2008 (UTC)

Template use

One of the templates I was using for my first article (yeah!), uses 'was' as part of the introduction to the case. In taxation, we speak of court cases in present tense because like creative works, they are always in existence. I'm working on User:XF_Law/Complete_Auto_Transit,_Inc._v._Brady this. Let me know if my own use of 'is' as opposed to 'was' is OK with this project. I like being here, and everyone has been helpful. ^{XF Law} _{talk at me} 06:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I think (I don't really contribute in the area) the past tense tends to be used on WP because court cases are seen as "events" (much like, say, a catastrophe or an election) rather than a "fact" (like evolution or magnetism) or an "object" such as a creative work or a city, which use present tense for at least part of the article. Circeus (talk) 17:39, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

I tend to support the use of present tense when the case's effect on present jurisprudence is being discussed, i.e. some sort of question raised by the case that lower courts haven't yet resolved, or how it's interpreted on a new issue. Past tense is fine and appropriate for discussing a case that has been wholly or partially overruled, and the contemporary reaction to it. Daniel Case (talk) 18:34, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

Trying to get my article on a little-known Supreme Court case in shape for a Good Article nomination

I am trying to prioritize the items on the to-do list for Heath v. Alabama. Which of these three tasks are most important (and are all 3 required)?

• Convert citation style from inline ("citation sentences") to footnotes, ← done. 23:53, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
• expand discussion of impact, check for published criticism of the decision and compare with laws in other jurisdictions, and
• fix the dual sovereignty and Ala. Crim. App. redlinks, either by writing or by finding suitable target articles. ← second redlink is now in a footnote. 23:53, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

The first of these 3 is easiest, being merely labor-intensive (rather than requiring real skill); the second requires some serious legal research (although a source was identified early on), and the third involves writing 2 new articles from scratch.

Once all this work is done (or at least the part of the work that is immediately necessary), then I would like to have the article reviewed for factual and legal accuracy – either prior to Good Article nomination or as part of the review process.

Finally, I might say that this job is more important than any of the above, but it falls under the parent wikiproject rather than here; furthermore, the broader a topic is, the more work is necessary, and I do not want to be biting off more than I can chew. 69.140.152.55 (talk) 02:44, 10 October 2008 (UTC)

2 new cases

If anyone's interested in helping flog two of my new articles into the "Did You Know" section of the main page in the next couple of days before they're "too old", I just wrote up the patent cases Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co. and Kellogg Co. v. National Biscuit Co., and added them to Template talk:Did you know ... if anyone would like to verify or otherwise shove them through the pipeline into the DYK section of the main page. Thanks! Tempshill (talk) 19:11, 16 December 2008 (UTC)