Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases/Archive 14

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Proposal to create a draftspace project.

Several years ago, I created Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/United States judges and justices, which included the creation of an individual draftspace page for each missing state supreme court justice (with a few later discovered and added to the total). That has accelerated the creation of articles for these sometimes obscure figures, with the number of missing judges dropping from 1,885 to 1,544 over the past three years (the number of articles being higher than the difference due to the addition of new drafts in the interim). If there is interest in this project, I can create a comparable subproject with a bare-bones draft page for each missing SCOTUS case, from which articles on missing cases can be built and moved to mainspace. Let me know what you think. Cheers! bd2412 T 04:23, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

• We have a template that automatically creates a bare-bones case page, {{SCOTUS-case}}. The only thing that might take time is figuring out the holding, and I think people mostly tend towards expending that effort for cases they're already interested in. lethargilistic (talk) 13:34, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

  Sounds like a good idea on its face, not sure what the downside would be. zchrykng (talk) 15:46, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

I'm not concerned about a downside, so much as it being redundant. I mean, in addition to the SCOTUS-case template, what's the difference between this and the hundreds of pages we already have listing supreme court cases? lethargilistic (talk) 16:05, 31 October 2018 (UTC)

I suppose we would first need to decide for sure whether we want articles on every individual case. If there are non-notable cases, it would indeed involve a modicum of waste to start drafts for those. bd2412 T 00:49, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

In my ideal world, when a user clicks an existing red link for a SCOTUS case, we'd give the user a welcome message and encourage him or her to start a new article, possibly by autofilling the editing text area with the starter template that we already have. However, most users are not logged in, so they're not even able to create a new article. This situation is pretty lame.

I'm not sure we gain a ton by making a lot of drafts. In this case, it would be tens of thousands of drafts that we'd need to then maintain. Why not just create stub articles at that point? As a random example, Draft:David P. Ligon has 15 edits and dates back to August 2015. In some ways, I wonder whether making it a real article from the start would've allowed the article to progress further. Drafts have intentionally lower visibility, which works directly against the wiki model of raising the visibility of "problematic" articles (such as incorrect or short articles) that can then be edited and fixed by passersby. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:05, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

As an experiment, I could create drafts for one selected year, and see if the existence of the drafts does anything to encourage their completion. bd2412 T 22:56, 1 November 2018 (UTC)

This might be a silly question, but do we have a list of red links for all the cases in question? zchrykng (talk) 00:24, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

We have lists by year, as with List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 400. bd2412 T 01:36, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Ah, thanks! I will look at that. zchrykng (talk) 02:04, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

An experiment sounds good to me! In the worst case, we can just move all the drafts to the main namespace and make them stubs. It may be a bit easier to pick a volume instead of picking a year, but I'll leave that to you. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:38, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Honestly, I got the concepts mixed up. I meant volume. I'll create the project space and try one out this weekend. I do note, by the way, that there will be a lot of ambiguous case names once we start actually creating them. For example, Harris v. United States and Hall v. United States appear in multiple volumes, likely for unrelated cases. bd2412 T 03:40, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

BD2412, not the most familiar with naming of cases, but would Harris v. United States (yyyy) or Harris v. United States (session #) work to distinguish them? zchrykng (talk) 05:02, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

I'd say year would be the better disambiguation since it looks somewhat like an actual citation, readers would be more likely to identify the year a case was decided than the session number or term, and it's shorter. Wugapodes [t^hɑk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz] 05:16, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Wugapodes, my main concern about using year was if it was a fine enough measure. I doubted there would be two identically named cases in a single session, but are there in a single year? zchrykng (talk) 05:24, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

I think it's a fine enough measure. I can't imagine two cases with the exact same name would be accepted in the same year. Whether it has ever happened is a question I don't think I'm qualified to answer, but I doubt it has happened. Even if there were such cases, I think they would be rare enough that we could just apply WP:IAR to them and come up with an ideal solution at that time. I could imagine they could easily be handled by a natural disambiguation (e.g., full names of litigants, date of decision as well as year, docket number, etc). Wugapodes [t^hɑk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɹɪbz] 05:32, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, that works, mostly wanted to talk it through to make sure it sounded right. zchrykng (talk) 05:34, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

You can see a list of cases that have articles at Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases/Reports/E. We typically disambiguate by doing "Foo v. Bar (XXXX)", but we have used the full citation when needed. Example: Erhardt v. Boaro, 113 U.S. 527 and Erhardt v. Boaro, 113 U.S. 537. --MZMcBride (talk) 12:46, 2 November 2018 (UTC)

I have created Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles/U.S. Supreme Court cases, with all missing cases from List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 399, plus a handful of other cases for which draftspace pages already exist. bd2412 T 02:25, 4 November 2018 (UTC)

Neat. Edits such as this are confusing me, just a little. :-) Did this infobox template get copy-pasted from somewhere? The "Concurring" template parameter is invalid (should be "Concurrence" as far as I know) and the "SCOTUS" template parameter is deprecated. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:17, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I picked a random existing case (I don't recall which one) and copied a blank version of the template from that case into all of the drafts. I seem to recall that at one point we had a preloaded template for creating a SCOTUS case article, complete with this template, headers, and categories? bd2412 T 23:10, 6 November 2018 (UTC)

Hi bd2412. Yep, we have {{SCOTUS-case}}, listed at Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases/Resources/Templates. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:25, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Article leads report - references in lead

Ponder this, learned WikiSCOTUSians: Report B (article leads by style guide status) currently considers about 66% of SCOTUS case articles to be formatted correctly. However, of the 1,000+ "not formatted" articles, I estimate that at least half are what might be false positives: articles that have a plain U.S. Reports citation in the lead, immediately followed by a reference with Template:Ussc.

Style guide format:

'''''Roe v. Wade''''', 410 U.S. 113 (1973), is a

Footnote version that the bot doesn't like:

'''''Roe v. Wade''''', 410 U.S. 113 (1973),<ref>{{ussc|name=Roe v. Wade|410|113|1973}}.</ref> is a

E.g., Symm v. United States and Marrama v. Citizens Bank of Massachusetts are both articles that I believe are style guide-compliant, but I could be wrong. Others might disagree and think that those footnotes are unnecessary or should be relocated. LegalSkeptic (talk) 02:15, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Hi LegalSkeptic. I think we typically avoid using inline citations in the text of the first sentence of an article, at least. If the reference is moved to the end of the sentence, that would be nicer and would likely appease the report. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:22, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

That makes sense. I will try to move those references when I come across them. Thanks MZMcBride! LegalSkeptic (talk) 12:24, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

Dissents read from the bench

Hi. My understanding is that Associates Justices (and maybe Chief Justices as well, who knows) will read their decisions from the bench if they feel particularly strongly about the case. This was noted recently in <https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-says-maryland-peace-cross-honoring-military-dead-does-not-constitute-government-endorsement-of-religion/2019/06/20/a63c4c24-9365-11e9-b570-6416efdc0803_story.html> regarding American Legion v. American Humanist Association, where Justice Ginsburg read her dissent from the bench. Justice Kagan read her dissent from the bench in the recently decided gerrymandering case. And so on. Would it make sense to catalog this practice? Should we have a "dissents read from the bench" article that notes every time it's happened? I'm somewhat curious how common the practice. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:33, 2 July 2019 (UTC)

• It's a very common practice and usually not too notable. If it ever gets news coverage, it's usually either because a) the Justice read *a lot* of their dissent, or b) the Justice got very emotional while reading their dissent. It should be fine to note those readings as they are covered by other media, as with anything else. lethargilistic (talk) 15:00, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
• I don't think there's a basis for a separate article. Procedures of the Supreme Court of the United States#Announcement of opinions would be the place to cover it. postdlf (talk) 15:05, 7 July 2019 (UTC)
  • Yeah, I mostly agree. After posting here, I came across <https://www.scotusblog.com/2013/07/scotus-for-law-students-sponsored-by-bloomberg-law-dissenting-from-the-bench/>, which is a pretty good piece and discusses how there's even been a bit of academic research in this area. I was also vaguely wondering whether noting that a dissent was read from the bench could be noted in pages such as 2015 term United States Supreme Court opinions of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. But based on lethargilistic's comment, it would probably be too trivial. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:06, 17 July 2019 (UTC)
    • Actually, I've been reflecting on this because I was reading a book about the Court recently (The Roberts Court by Marcia Coyle) and it noted that reading dissents from the bench was rare. Maybe I just think it's common because it's common today because of the drastically divisive issues that have been coming to the Court recently and, frankly, the Conservatives' appetites for doing whatever they're doing. It might be more notable than I thought then. lethargilistic (talk) 02:20, 18 July 2019 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 263

FYI. postdlf (talk) 18:14, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

2018 term end date?

What do y'all make of this? First this, then this, then back to this... That's not something I remember seeing before. postdlf (talk) 00:49, 17 September 2019 (UTC)

Portal:Law

The law portal has a selected cases feature. Let's build it up with content from this project. Cheers! bd2412 T 03:09, 21 September 2019 (UTC)

Request for information on WP1.0 web tool

Hello and greetings from the maintainers of the WP 1.0 Bot! As you may or may not know, we are currently involved in an overhaul of the bot, in order to make it more modern and maintainable. As part of this process, we will be rewriting the web tool that is part of the project. You might have noticed this tool if you click through the links on the project assessment summary tables.

We'd like to collect information on how the current tool is used by....you! How do you yourself and the other maintainers of your project use the web tool? Which of its features do you need? How frequently do you use these features? And what features is the tool missing that would be useful to you? We have collected all of these questions at this Google form where you can leave your response. Walkerma (talk) 04:25, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

"Court membership edge case for Carroll v. United States"

The question posted at Template talk:Infobox SCOTUS case#Court membership edge case for Carroll v. United States is only secondarily about template mechanics, so this project's members' input would be helpful. postdlf (talk) 22:14, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Seeking discussion on proposed minor change to Template:Ussc

Hi all, I just wanted to draw attention and seek input/consensus on a proposal located at Template talk:Ussc#Seeking consensus to change short-form citation: include the volume number (if it is available)). My imaginary friends and I all agree that it's a good idea, but that's still only a consensus of one. Thanks! —grolltech^(talk) 08:31, 23 November 2019 (UTC)

Schism v. United States

Technically not a U.S. Supreme Court case (as cert. was denied) but Schism v. United States could benefit from some attention from the experts at this project. Cheers! BD2412 T 13:22, 3 January 2020 (UTC)

Remanded, and then what?

At articles such as Toyota Motor Manufacturing, Kentucky, Inc. v. Williams, the article often seems to end with "The case is remanded to <lower court>". But then what? Is there any way to figure out what happened in the lower court? WhatamIdoing (talk) 16:57, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: When a case is remanded, the lower court must rehear the case taking into account the interpretation offered by the Court. Sometimes this is entirely new trials, other times it may simply be a summary judgment or a settlement between parties. You can usually find out what happens after remand from that lower court's reporter (for subsequent decisions) or looking for documents in an archive or database of proceedings. — Wug·a·po·des​ 17:04, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

More often than not, if the lower court got things right, their decision would just be affirmed, so something that is remanded to the lower court was something that the lower court got wrong (although, perhaps, also something for which relevant factors were not properly considered, and must be weighed anew to come to a correct conclusion). Either way, a matter that is remanded to the lower court is likely to be disposed of in favor of the party who brought the appeal to the Supreme Court. BD2412 T 18:04, 4 January 2020 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: Good question, as many folks don't know what "remanded" means in this context, and I suspect many thoughtful people wonder what happens next. One option, which doesn't answer the "what happened at the lower court?" question, but which will assist some readers, is to wikilink "remanded" to the article, Remand (court procedure). For example, I added such a wikilink to the Toyota v. Williams article (diff). Markworthen (talk) 19:02, 5 January 2020‎ (UTC)

That will probably help some people, but I think that as a general rule, it'd be a good idea (when possible, i.e., not the week after the decision is announced) to include information about the effect that the ruling had. This could include both what happened to the people involved in the case, and also how the case got cited later. WhatamIdoing (talk) 00:11, 6 January 2020 (UTC)

I definitely agree, as I've wondered about the final disposition of many cases over the years. I'm not an attorney and don't have ready access to LexisNexis or Westlaw, which I assume is the best way to research what happened after a case is remanded.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I am a man. The traditional male pronouns are fine.) 17:27, 11 January 2020 (UTC)

Feedback

I would very much appreciate feedback on my latest article, Republic of Philippines v. Pimentel. This subject was very difficult to write about, with many twists and turns. Psiĥedelisto (talk) 09:21, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc.

I have started a draft for Draft:Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, Inc., the copyright case of the season. Cheers! BD2412 T 19:31, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

• Has oral argument been presented to the Court? GregJackP Boomer! 15:10, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

• Yes, it was argued December 2, 2019. BD2412 T 15:35, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

• I would love to work on it, but am conflicted out. GregJackP Boomer! 16:10, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Newsletter & invite

Hello everyone. It seems like this WikiProject unfortunately does not have much activity at the moment. I'd love to help turn that around. What may be a good step is creating a newsletter, where recent cases that still need an article can be listed, as well as other project news, article alerts, drives, a case of the month, etc. We could possibly already have an April edition. Before I create one though, I was wondering if there is interest in such a newsletter; just a few people interested in receiving it would already be a great start. In addition, I'll be creating an invitation template - like they use at WikiProject Women in Red for example - with which anyone can invite those who seem interested in SCOTUS cases to join the WikiProject. Best, MrClog (talk) 20:57, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida

Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida has a good amount of content, but is almost completely unsourced. This is a case that has some solid scholarship about it, and I'd like to see it brought up to featured status, after which we can feature it in both Portal:Law and Portal:Florida. bd2412 T 14:44, 11 October 2019 (UTC)

• I would be happy to take a look at it, but would want to change the references to Bluebook. I would post that intent on the article's talk page prior to doing it, of course. Any comments as to that proposed change here would be appreciated. GregJackP Boomer! 15:19, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

• I have no objection to that, but I wouldn't count out the possibility that some Wikipedian would prefer house style for citations. Do we have templates for Bluebook citation? BD2412 T 15:34, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

• There are three templates that create Bluebook cites. {{Cite court}}, {{Bluebook journal}}, and {{Bluebook website}}. I haven't used any of them yet, so I'm not sure how good they are. GregJackP Boomer! 16:14, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

• They can always be improved if lacking. Have at it! BD2412 T 16:28, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

• I waited a week for any comments, without any responses, so I've started to rework the article. GregJackP Boomer! 10:14, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Template help needed

Can someone who understands templates look at {{Cite court}}, {{Bluebook journal}}, and {{Bluebook website}} and take the ending period out? It prevents using the templates in string cites. Thanks, GregJackP Boomer! 10:17, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

@GregJackP: can you link to an example? I wrote the bluebook ones a few years ago and am willing to take a look, but want to know what the use case is. — Wug·a·po·des​ 21:32, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

@Wugapodes:, sure, it is in Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida, see references 5, 6, & 12. It works great for a single cite, but if you string cite, you end up with a ".," every time. GregJackP Boomer! 21:48, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

PS, if you can't fix it, or if you believe that it's better without dropping the period, I can still hand code the references. GregJackP Boomer! 21:51, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

@GregJackP: I added a |punct= parameter to {{Bluebook website}} which allows you to determine the final punctuation. Technically, you can have it include any string you want, it just replaces the final period with whatever you give it. {{Bluebook journal}} doesn't add a period anyway. I don't feel comfortable changing {{cite court}} without a wider discussion per template protected editing guidelines. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:06, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! GregJackP Boomer! 23:50, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Dealing with cases of limited notability

Take a recent case like Kansas v. Glover decided this week. It's case background is relatively simple to explain, its case history is rather trivial and the explanation of the SCOTUS decision is pretty straight forward. There may be more to write on it in the future if the decision is seen as a landmark but most consider it a narrow decision and thus just mostly clarification and not upsetting the system. While it has coverage, there's not really much to write about it, so instead of a full case page, it fells this could be summarized in 3-4 paragraph. Many of the red-linked cases on 2019 term opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States and similar year pages feel they similar - they aren't major decisions, but we should at least document the case more than just what the table on that page gives.

Would it make sense for each year to have a "catchall" page for these short cases, a section for each of the cases without a standalone article, providing redirects appropriate, to at least provide the basic summary as we can pull from SCOTUSBlog and the main newspapers that routinely report on each SCOTUS action regardless how trivial like NYTimes? If the case does become more significant, then the standalone can be made instead over the redirect, and the case removed from this catchall page. Alternatively, as the cases are decided, transitioning the cases off the table of List of pending United States Supreme Court cases onto a leading table on this catchall page for all cases, so the reader can also see the types of questions asked through an entire term at a glance. There's a handful of ways to do this but at the core, its about a catchall page for non-notable but decided cases so that we have some coverage of them. --Masem (t) 22:13, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

We do that for per curiam opinions, which rarely merit more than a short paragraph or two, as these are typically the shortest opinions by the Court and are usually decided without oral argument. But there's really no benefit to adding an extra layer of process or content for the rest of the 70 some opinions handed down each year (and 3-4 paragraphs is really too lengthy to merge even if there weren't a longstanding consensus that each full opinion merited a standalone article). We're actually really good at starting those articles and expanding that coverage over time (take a look at prior years' lists to see the percentage of bluelinks), it just doesn't always happen right away. Some may not get mainstream press headlines and may be more interesting to specialists in the profession than to lay people, but there's always enough sources and enough to write about them. postdlf (talk) 01:46, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

In addition to the volume lists and recent term opinions lists, we also have subject lists such as List of United States Supreme Court decisions on capital punishment and Chief Justice lists such as List of United States Supreme Court cases by the Chase Court. All of these lists are collected at Lists of United States Supreme Court cases, of course.

I think the per curiam treatment, where we provide a small infobox with metadata and a few paragraphs as part of a larger article, would work well for many cases. We also create redirects for per curiam case titles. It seems like the decision to have a standalone article should be decided on a case-by-case basis, particularly as there's little consequence to changing our minds later. A redirect can easily be expanded just as a stub article can easily be redirected. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:36, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Presumably, every case that reaches the Supreme Court has some additional case history either in the lower circuits or in the state courts, which may offer an entirely different route for expansion of these shorter matters. BD2412 T 03:46, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Two infoboxes

See Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP and Trump v. Deutsche Bank AG. Should these cases have infoboxes for both the Supreme Court case and the Appeals case? I can't think of any other SCOTUS article that has both and a significant majority of SCOTUS cases come from Courts of Appeals.  Bait30  ^{Talk 2 me pls?} 20:35, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

No, it should never have two. Until SCOTUS hands down its opinions, it should only have one for the COA opinion because that's the highest decision in each case so far. Then that should be replaced by the SCOTUS infobox when the opinions are released. postdlf (talk) 22:22, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

@Postdlf: So just to make sure, this means that Google v. Oracle America and R.G. & G.R. Harris Funeral Homes Inc. v. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission should use the Court of Appeals infobox for now. At least until SCOTUS delivers its opinion, right?  Bait30  ^{Talk 2 me pls?} 18:20, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

That's what makes sense to me at least. postdlf (talk) 20:45, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

List of United States courts of appeals cases

Slightly outside the provenance of this project, but of some importance to it, List of United States courts of appeals cases could certainly use some attention. I can't imagine how many cases should be there that are not. BD2412 T 01:43, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Accepting certiorari

Should or can US Supreme Court articles keep language such as "The court granted certiorari on May 30" after arguments are held or after the decision is issued? Is is ok to leave the language in or should it be deleted in that the court grants certioriari in all decisions it issues? Kaltenmeyer (talk) 13:59, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

It’s part of the procedural history, the fact it happened isn’t interesting (though necessary before they can hear all but OJ cases) but the timing could be (how long after did they hold argument, did the court’s membership change from when cert was granted to when it was heard, etc). But as there’s a prior history field in the infobox for cases that have had opinions handed down, it could just be noted there rather than in the article body. Really up to editors to decide for each case. postdlf (talk) 19:16, 2 June 2020 (UTC)

Arkansas v. Tennessee‎

I have started Arkansas v. Tennessee‎, the rare but occasional original jurisdiction boundary dispute. Cheers! BD2412 T 21:14, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

I have also started the fairly unremarkable tax/voting rights case, Phoenix v. Kolodziejski. BD2412 T 23:32, 14 June 2020 (UTC)

Question on the style guide

The current style guide for SCOTUS cases WP:SCOTUS/SG suggests that the lede sentence be laid out with bolded and italic case name, the US Reports citation number, and then explanation the case. The example given does NOT link the US Reports stuff as printed on that page, nor uses the {{ussc}} template, but it doesn't say to not use it either.

This came up the other day in the Bostock decision as a newer editor asked what the "___" in the citation meant. Someone has unlinked the USReport link and volume /took off the ussc template, so there was no linkage to anything relevant here. It seems to me that we should be providing explanatory linkage in that citation mention at least in first mention) , whether that be hand-added or via the ussc template. I think the fact that the SG is silent on the linking aspect is being taken as "do not link" explicitly, but that's not clear, and I wanted to check if that needs to be made clearer. I do note that {{SCOTUS-case}} makes that a reference after the first sentence, which the SG is also lacking. --Masem (t) 00:14, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Draft:Coalition for Mercury-Free Drugs v. Sebelius

I have started Draft:Coalition for Mercury-Free Drugs v. Sebelius. Although not a Supreme Court case, it was a significant vaccine law case written by Brett Kavanaugh as a circuit court judge. Cheers! BD2412 T 02:11, 22 June 2020 (UTC)

Infobox SCOTUS case

Hey. I have two proposals for {{Infobox SCOTUS case}}. One about cleaning up Oyez links, and the second about moving citation info to Wikidata (where not already there) and using that instead. Appreciate your thoughts on these changes at the latest 2 sections at Template talk:Infobox SCOTUS case. Thanks, ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:29, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Changes to Template:Caselaw source

It's messy, and I think we can clean this template up a lot. It doesn't follow good practices for URLs or link rot, and we can auto-generate much of it anyway. I've proposed changes here. Thoughts appreciated. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 11:48, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

All Supreme Court cases are notable

The following is an essay by User:Ex Parte. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

This project has discussed in the past how to address Supreme Court decisions of lesser significance, and has long held the view of "inherent notability of all SCOTUS cases." I add my support: Every decision of the U.S. Supreme Court is presumptively notable under WP:N. The general notability guidelines tend to require "significant coverage" by reliable media sources, and every single Supreme Court decision receives that kind of coverage from a variety of reliable sources, in particular those sources which are focused on legal developments or Supreme Court decisions. There are reliable sources whose entire purpose is to cover Supreme Court decisions of every tier of importance (e.g., SCOTUSblog). As such, all Supreme Court decisions carry the presumption of notability. Only upon an especially clear showing, supported by direct statements to such effect in reliable sources, should that presumption be negated.

And this conclusion makes a lot of sense. While some disputes which make their way before the Court might seem procedural or semantic (and thus at least uninteresting, if not unimportant), they still are part of a very exclusive club: the less-than-100 cases the Supreme Court actually grants certiorari in each year. And to warrant certiorari, a case usually involves a legal question that has resulted in significant disagreement among lower courts. Surely the answer to a question that controversial will have some lasting effect.

Not every case is clearly impactful enough to warrant a lot of explanation. In those cases, we should narrow the scope of our explanation. That's completely fine and perfectly consistent with Wikipedia policy. But we should still cover them. -- ExParte ^talk 21:18, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

The above essay is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

A couple points: this probably applies to most cases since the mid-20th century with wide-spread media coverage. Some cases from the 19th century and before may be somewhat lost to time. Second, this should only be for cases where a decision was actually issued. Cases where SCOTUS may have accepted the case but at the end either issued a simple order close the case, such as due to mootness, may not necessarily be notable though there is still a good chance. eg G.G. v. Gloucester County School Board is where such a situation happened, though obviously that case is still notable. But yes, if it was a post 1950 case with a full decision issued, it is likely notable. --Masem (t) 21:41, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Some cases from the 19th century and before may be somewhat lost to time. I'm sure they'd still likely be written about in some book, somewhere. Less accessible maybe, but still seems likely almost every SCOTUS case has been discussed in multiple, independent reliable sources. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:43, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

I take issue with this line specifically: Only upon an especially clear showing, supported by direct statements to such effect in reliable sources, should that presumption be negated. The burden should always be on editors seeking inclusion to prove significant coverage in indepenednt reliable sources exist because it is simply not possible to prove they do not. We should presume those sources exist because unappealable legal decisions on behalf of a nuclear armed state are likely to attract significant attention, but if challenged editors should be able to provide some. In general though, the existence of law reviews and court watcher publications like SCOTUSBlog make it very hard to not assume modern cases would pass GNG. — Wug·a·po·des​ 23:30, 3 September 2020 (UTC)

Per the above observation on, e.g., matters dismissed as improvidently granted cert, I would adjust the proposition to say something like all substantive opinions of the Supreme Court are notable. I would add that nothing prevents us from having articles on notable cases heard by federal appellate courts and state supreme courts, and where such a case ends in a resolution before the U.S. Supreme Court short of a decision, we should probably have an article on the underlying case from which that appeal was taken, with a note in the article on its brief foray into the Supreme Court, and a redirect from the corresponding U.S. Reports citation. BD2412 T 02:13, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

(I think this is a reply to me?) I don't mean to imply that decisions of lower courts can't be notable, and in certain topic areas they're the highest decisions that exist. But due to the volume of cases, federal circuit and state court decisions probably won't be notable unless (1) they present a unique legal interpretation which has not been accepted at higher levels (e.g., Engblom v. Carey), (2) they have a real shot at being heard by SCOTUS (e.g., they create a circuit split), or (3) they are an in rem case and have a funny name (e.g. South Dakota v. Fifteen Impounded Cats). — Wug·a·po·des​ 05:54, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

I would contend that some kind of activity at the U.S. Supreme Court level beyond a mere denial of cert. would tend to indicate that the case below was notable. BD2412 T 17:04, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

I think that's probably going to correct in most cases, but I would hesitate to enshrine a position that every such case is rebuttably inherently notable. The issue of notability should be determined on the facts pertaining to that case. TJRC (talk) 17:59, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

I may comment more when I have more time to think about it, but a couple things would, I think, need to be added to leaven this.

• BD2412 mentions dismissed-as-improvidently-granted cases (DIGs). I agree, at least in most cases, but think that's a self-resolving problem. When the court DIGs, it doesn't issue a ruling, so there's nothing to write about anyway. If there's an interesting dissent from the DIG or the underlying case is still important, it may still be notable, just not as inherently notable as a SCOTUS case.
• More of a problem are the grant-vacate-remand orders (GVR orders). Technically, the Court has granted cert and issued a judgment, which would seem to convey notability, but these are just summary decisions, telling the lower court to do-over taking into account the case cited in the order. This would indicate that the case that formed the basis for the Court to do the GVR is likely inherently notable, but not the case that was the subject of the GVR.
• Bear in mind that prior to the Supreme Court Case Selections Act, there were many cases that were appealed as of right to the Supreme Court, for example when the highest court in a state had decided an issue on the basis of federal law. Those didn't get to the Supreme Court due to any importance of the case; they got there because the jurisdictional rules at the time allowed a disgruntled non-prevailing party at the state level to go to the Supreme Court as of right. I think there were other routes too (been a long time since I looked at it, the SCCSA was enacted well before I became an attorney), so we don't want to be over-inclusive. This could possible be handled simply by limiting this to cases where the Court has heard a case under grant of certiorari.
• Last but not.... okay, last but least: "less-than-100 cases" should be "fewer-than-100 cases".

TJRC (talk) 03:01, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

I'm not very worried about this. Presumed notable is just that: presumption. We can say any SCOTUS decision is presumed notable, but if it goes to AFD and no one can find sources that talk about the DIG or GVR, then delete. But with that out of the way, I'm not convinced DIGs and GVRs cannot be presumed notable; the prior dispute is usually covered extensively in local and regional newspapers, and cases which get distributed for conference generate a lot of coverage just for being distributed. That's a relatively new development, but the two combine to make me pretty confident that we don't need to get into the weeds on what kinds of decisions we mean. — Wug·a·po·des​ 06:03, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

I wasn't picking on DIGs particularly; I would give similar treatment to all cases where cert is granted but no substantive opinion issues. BD2412 T 17:23, 4 September 2020 (UTC)

Minor v. Happersett — 1874 or 1875?

Minor v. Happersett has, I believe from the start, been described as an 1875 SCOTUS decision. However, an editor recently pointed out that the various primary sources for the opinion (Findlaw, Justia, etc.) all give 1874, not 1875, in the case title, and on this basis attempted to change 1875 to 1874 in the article text (a change which was later reverted).

There is a discussion about this going on at Talk:Minor v. Happersett. Thoughts on the talk page so far include where to find definitive info on when the case was argued and decided, and what to do if secondary sources prove the case was really from 1875 but well-meaning but overly persistent editors insist on changing it back to 1874 because that's what the official cite says. Any additional input would be gratefully received here. Thanks. — Richwales (no relation to Jimbo) 19:10, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Proposed category rename

I have proposed at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2020 October 11#Category:Unanimous votes of the United States Supreme Court to rename Category:Unanimous votes of the United States Supreme Court to Category:Unanimous decisions of the United States Supreme Court. Cheers! BD2412 T 03:33, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Patience

Sorry to be hyper-technical, but please wait until the swearing-in to add content on Amy Coney Barrett as a justice in any relevant pages. It won't be long. BD2412 T 00:15, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

Ok, I surrender, it's useless to try to keep the masses from jumping the gun. BD2412 T 01:08, 27 October 2020 (UTC)

New caselaw template

Hi. In July I linked above to discussion Template_talk:Caselaw_source#Hardcoded_URLs; {{Caselaw source}} is very old & has a few issues for SCOTUS cases. First, URLs are hardcoded. We should use IDs so we can easily update when URL naming schemes change, instead we require full URLs. Eg findlaw's has changed, so URLs are now broken eg at Marbury v. Madison. Second issue, for SCOTUS cases just knowing the volume and page we can generate all these URLs auto. So I've simplified the template and propose splitting to a new {{SCOTUS case sources}} (or similarly named), and replacing usages in existing SCOTUS articles. I've finally gotten around to making this.

The new template I propose is User:ProcrastinatingReader/caselaw (see source). A few test examples (converting live article usages to this template) can be found at Special:Permalink/987105036. Only Oyez is missing in this currently, it's going to take a bit more work to get right & I don't want to do that if there's no interest, so. What do people think? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 23:20, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

Pinging a few recent participants/others that may be interested, in case you folks have any thoughts? @BD2412, Wugapodes, Postdlf, L235, and GregJackP:? ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 08:26, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Oh thank goodness someone is looking into this! I wholeheartedly support anything you can do in this area to make things better. Realistically, we should do one of a few things: {1) import everything to Wikisource and exclusively link to it there; (2) find a single reliable persistent resolver for these cases based on the citation that can link/redirect to other sources with the case texts; or (3) create a resolver. But that's a long-term problem.

And afterwards if you have time to look into the {{Infobox SCOTUS case}} and {{Infobox court case}} boxes I would be eternally grateful. (And apparently there's also a new template at {{Infobox US Supreme Court case}}? I don't really know what's going on there.) Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 08:50, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

I'm all for it. BD2412 T 16:34, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

All for more useful linkage support that should be easy to adjust for future situations. --Masem (t) 16:36, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

{{Infobox court case}} is beyond my help, I'm afraid. I remember looking into it recently. It has been subject to half a dozen merges over the years, apparently, and it has no maintainer. The template is a mess and will be a real headache to sort out into some well-designed structure. In other words, it needs something more divine than I. The fork template seems like a mistake, I have sent it to TfD. The Wikisource idea seems interesting, will look into that, thanks Kevin! ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 12:29, 30 November 2020 (UTC)

Looks cool, thanks! I like Oyez, but it's not worth stalling the whole project over it. I also like Kevin's idea of linking to wikisource. — Wug·a·po·des​ 01:36, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I am very much in favor of adding any missing cases to Wikisource and linking exclusively to Wikisource as our database for case text. BD2412 T 17:29, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately I think that will have to be a medium-to-long term project unless someone here has the Wikisource expertise necessary to launch something like this – I've looked into it a few times but I still don't really get it. If you do, let me know; I have a lot of questions. Best, KevinL (aka L235 · t · c) 22:59, 1 December 2020 (UTC)

• Where do we usually link? I personally prefer the Caselaw Access Project developed by Harvard's Library Innovation Lab because it's free, open source, has all but the more recent federal cases, and court opinions are paginated, which makes it much easier for me to create pincites (pinpoint citations). I don't know if this is relevant, but there is a Caselaw Access Project API and bulk data service with "40 million pages of published U.S. court cases." Thanks! Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) [he/his/him] 18:55, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Deletion discussion for Category:Worst United States Supreme Court decisions

I have initiated a discussion of interest to this project at Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2021 March 2#Category:Worst United States Supreme Court decisions. BD2412 T 04:01, 2 March 2021 (UTC)

Deletion discussion for Category:Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States who died in office

A deletion discussion has been initiated for Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2021 March 2#Category:Judges who died in office, which includes the recently created subcategory, Category:Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States who died in office. If these categories are deleted, their contents will be upmerged into Category:People who died in office. BD2412 T 16:26, 3 March 2021 (UTC)

Juilliard v. Greenman

Juilliard v. Greenman could use a little love from anyone who knows their way around the area of law that it addresses, namely the validity of federal reserve notes as money and the obligation to accept them as payment, and the congressional power that underlies that. I've added a {{refideas}} to its talk page with a number of law review articles that discuss it, but I don't have the thousand-foot view of this area and am reluctant to edit the article with an authority I do not feel. (I'm a lawyer, but the constitutional issues of this case are far afield of my usual area of practice, intellectual property.)

I was intrigued to find that the "Juilliard" in this case was industrialist Augustus D. Juilliard, whose testamentary trust established the Juilliard School after his death. In fact, I only became aware of the Juilliard v. Greenman case when creating the "Juilliard" disambiguation page a few years ago, and learned of the thread running through the case, the man and the school only today. TJRC (talk) 22:30, 17 April 2021 (UTC)

Categorizing per curiam cases

We have Category:United States Supreme Court per curiam opinions, that contains all of the "XXX term per curiam opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States" list-articles. Some of the individual per-curiam cases are in years for which there is no term list-article, and these case-articles are also in the category. But cases in years for which there is a term list-article are not in the category. That seems like an inconsistent approach from the perspective of standard WP organization. Should all such case-articles themselves should be in the category? The infobox could do that automatically based on the |PerCuriam= field. DMacks (talk) 12:58, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

There are about 150 per curiam decision articles, so the cat would not be ridiculously large. And the annual term-lists could be pulled to the front of the cat using the "main article for a category" syntax. DMacks (talk) 13:01, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

That sounds like it would be a good idea, DMacks. Frankly, I didn't even know this category existed, so I've written articles that are neither on a list nor in a category. The same is true of, just from a brief perusal, Brandenburg v. Ohio, Stone v. Graham, and the Skokie Affair. Automating it with the infobox seems like the right way to go: there's little point in having a category that has only a fraction of the relevant cases. Cheers, Extraordinary Writ (talk) 17:22, 24 June 2021 (UTC)

Setting the parameter now automatically categorizes. It might take a day or two for WP to finish propagating the change into all affected articles and finish populating the category. And because the list-articles begin with the year-number, they automatically sort to the beginning when looking at the category page. Is it reasonable to assume that a case-name would not begin with a number? If so, I can force them to sort even higher. DMacks (talk) 01:43, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that, DMacks – I see it's already working for the example articles above. With regard to your question: there are SCOTUS case titles that begin with numbers, e.g. 44 Liquormart, Inc. v. Rhode Island, 14 Penn Plaza LLC v. Pyett, and the remarkably named 62 Cases of Jam v. United States. While none of those are per curiams (per curia?), I can't foreclose the possibility that there's one floating out there somewhere. Anyways, thanks again for your work on this. Cheers, Extraordinary Writ (talk) 03:04, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

You're welcome! Feel free to ping me if there are other such "automatic cats" that would be useful. I didn't know about 62 Cases itself, but in rem cases are definitely fun. DMacks (talk) 03:55, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

DMacks, the most obvious one would be to simply have the infobox automatically put the article in the non-diffusing Category:United States Supreme Court cases. There are only a few missing, but I suppose doing it automatically would be easier than correcting each one individually. Here's another idea: use the DecideYear parameter to categorize the article into the appropriate member of Category:United States case law by year. There are a reasonable number missing (66 minus a handful of pending cases), so it would definitely save somebody plenty of work if it were done automatically. My technical knowledge is decidedly lacking (there's a reason I've never applied for the template editor perm), so do tell me if these ideas would have some terrible unforeseen consequence. Thanks again! Extraordinary Writ (talk) 21:51, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Category:United States Supreme Court cases is now automated. I filed a bot-req to remove the now-redundant explicit category tag on the case pages. User:JocularJellyfish has some other thoughts at Template talk:Infobox US Supreme Court case#Automating Categories, so let's switch/centralize discussion there since it is clearly about the template. DMacks (talk) 23:33, 26 June 2021 (UTC)

Troxel v. Granville

This article lacks many important facts, e.g. the full names of the plaintiffs and defendants and why the former sued the latter. It does not summarize jurists' commentaries, either. Members of this WikiProject ought to make time to address these issues.--RekishiEJ (talk) 06:49, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

McCray v. United States

I have started a stub at McCray v. United States to resolve a redlink in Melville Fuller. BD2412 T 05:26, 5 March 2021 (UTC)

@BD2412:, may you expand the article? It does not tell all the SCOTUS justices who formed the majority and the ones that dissented in that case, Fuller's argument and commentaries made by news media and jurists.--RekishiEJ (talk) 06:49, 27 June 2021 (UTC)

I expect that there are others better qualified to expand it than I am. My goal here is just to get stubs started for some needed cases. BD2412 T 03:34, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

United States v. Felix

Hi, I am new here and I am trying to edit this stupid article, United States v. Felix. I had it come up for work once and found the discussion on double jeopardy to be quite interesting. Was wondering if someone would be willing to help me summarize some of the sections and help me with the templating. I have a draft in my sandbox for anyone who would like to see it. Amicuswiki07 (talk) 05:45, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

@Amicuswiki07 Glad to see you take an interest! Far too few professionals actually take the time to improve Wikipedia. For some general advice, I would try to start by looking for law review articles and other secondary sources that discuss the case, and get everything I can out of them. Then, I would fill in the gaps with the decision itself. Secondary sources are preferred over primary sources here, since they can put the decision in context. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:18, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

To add on, once you've got more of the content filled in, don't be afraid to drop a line on my talk page and I can look over the citations and such. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 19:25, 25 October 2021 (UTC)

Thank you that sounds good! I can definitely do that, I was about to use the decision itself from Lexis but I will try using secondary sources now. Amicuswiki07 (talk) 00:48, 26 October 2021 (UTC)

United States Supreme Court cases by volume

I've been looking at some of the articles listed at Lists of United States Supreme Court cases by volume. I've noticed that many of the articles appear as red links, even though Wikipedia has an article for them, since the name in the list does not match the name of the Wikipedia article. Are the names in the list specifically written to match the way they are written in the United States Reports? If yes, is there any way to solve this other than manually creating a redirect for each case? If not, is there any reason why these particular names are used? --Puzzledvegetable^{Is it teatime already?} 02:15, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

• There has to be some way to generate a list of reconciliations for these. All of the lists and all of the articles should contain the U.S. Reports case citation. BD2412 T 03:04, 2 November 2021 (UTC)