Government Information Finding U.S. Supreme Court Cases
Major resources
- Lexis-Nexis Academic
- This database provides the most comprehensive information about court cases:
- Go to Legal
- Federal & State Cases provides the text of cases. Search by the party names or the citation. Provided are dispositions, prior history, a summary, headnotes, syllabus, counsel, and opinions.
- Shepard's for U.S. Supreme Court lists more recent cases that cite your case. You must search by the citation number for the case. (You can find this by searching in Federal & State Cases).
- Law Reviews provide analysis of court cases by legal experts.
- To search for news articles from legal newspapers, magazines, and newsletters, go to News and under "Select Sources" choose "Legal News Group File."
- Go to Legal
- Legal Information Institute - Cornell Law School
- Provides syllabi, decisions, and opinions for court cases. Also gives information on current and recent cases.
- Go to the Supreme Court Collection for Supreme Court cases
- Search the opinions of the US Supreme Court
- "Historic Supreme Court Decisions" allows you to search for cases by topic, Supreme Court justice, or party name.
- Each case has a syllabus, full decision, and opinions.
- Federal Law Materials - Judicial Opinions has cases from other federal courts.
- Go to the Supreme Court Collection for Supreme Court cases
- The Oyez Project
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A multimedia database containing opinions, abstracts, and audio from oral arguments
relating to Constitutional Law cases before the Supreme Court. It also has a subject list of court cases.
Print resources - Great American Court Cases
- Location:
REF KF 385 .A4 G74
- Summaries and analysis of major court cases. Organized by topic and then by court case.
- Summaries and analysis of major court cases. Organized by topic and then by court case.
- West's Encyclopedia of American Law
- Location:
REF KF 451. W47 1998
- Articles on major issues, such as abortion, civil rights, freedom of speech, religion, etc. Includes summaries and case numbers of important cases.
- Articles on major issues, such as abortion, civil rights, freedom of speech, religion, etc. Includes summaries and case numbers of important cases.
- Supreme Court of the United States 1789-1980: An Index to Opinions Arranged by Justice
- Location:
REF KF 101.6 .B57 1983
- For each justice of the Supreme Court from 1789-1980, this book lists the court cases for which they gave opinions. It provides the case name, number and date. To find the text of the opinion, you should search for the case in one of the other sources.
Other resources - For each justice of the Supreme Court from 1789-1980, this book lists the court cases for which they gave opinions. It provides the case name, number and date. To find the text of the opinion, you should search for the case in one of the other sources.
- Federal Judiciary
- Official Web site of the Federal courts, includes selected full text publications.
- FindLaw: Supreme Court Opinions
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A database for searching for the full-text of court decisions and briefs.
- FLITE - Supreme Court Decisions, 1937-1975
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Provides the full-text of decisions for cases from 1937-1975.
- New York Times
- The New York Times often carries news stories on legal issues.
- You can search Lexis-Nexis for articles in the New York Times and other newspapers.
- You can search Lexis-Nexis for articles in the New York Times and other newspapers.
- Supreme Court of the United States
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Official website, includes oral argument transcripts, press releases, and contact information.