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Change the standard template!

I'd like to suggest that we change the template recommended here for case pages, with standard headings of ==Background== and ==Opinion of the Court== and then ==Subsequent developments==. It could be shorter, more accurate, and capture everything that the headings should. The disadvantage, of course, of any change is that there's about a thousand pages already following this format, and I'm sure many users have become familiar with it. Nevertheless, it'd be better if the headings were ==Facts== and ==Judgment== and then ==Significance==. So clearly this is shorter. That's better in itself, and a reason to change it. Second, "background" might invite some people to go into the social history of the case, or something, which is more suited to a "significance" section. Then, "judgment" is better because courts don't give one opinion, but there is one judgment (one award, remedy, etc). There are enough cases in the US Supreme Court and every other where judges all give different opinions. So it's factually inaccurate to say that section is for the "Opinion of the Court". Third, significance sounds better. We often want to know not just what happened after, but also criticism of the case from commentators, which isn't only "subsequent developments". So for all those reasons - clarity, accuracy and comprehensiveness, don't you agree that we should change the standard template? Wikidea 12:08, 2 January 2011 (UTC)

I think this is a good idea, and in regards to changing the articles with the current template, it could be accomplished rather painlessly by a concerted effort using AWB. I'm not sure "Signficance" is the best choice however, I think that section should be used to describe the subsequent legal/political history of the case, such as consequential Court cases and Acts adopted by Congress, or the resolution in the case. I think "Subsequent history" or "Subsequent events" could be used instead. I for one have added a "Commentary" section to describe the academic response, but I agree that "Significance" is broader. Maybe there are better titles that we have overlooked? Shoplifter (talk) 13:10, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
I've always used "subsequent jurisprudence" for case law developments, and "subsequent developments" for everything else. I don't think "facts" is a good header title because it doesn't provide any context (what, the rest of the article isn't about facts?) and it may involve a summary of allegations rather than "facts." It's really going to be meaningful only to law students who are used to seeing that as part of a case law brief. "Background of the case" is much better, and it should include a broader context for the Court's opinion, to explain what preceded it both legally and culturally if reliable sources have so commented. You can't reasonably write about Brown v. Board of Education without some summary of the state of racial segregation. postdlf (talk) 16:52, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Postdlf. Some degree of flexibility on the headings is fine, which is why what's on the front page is a suggested outline. If "judgment" or "opinions" is more appropriate on a case by case basis, I'm sure our editors can determine that themselves. But "facts" will only be readily comprehensible to law students, and does a disservice to our broader audience. And "significance" is just vague. If you want to include commentary about the case's significance, then I'd suggest "critical commentary" or "analysis" or the like. But that's not a good reason to enshrine a vague section header into the default outline when most of our articles probably won't contain any critical analysis.--Chaser (talk) 19:17, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
It sounds like at the least we all want ==Judgment==. Shall we change that now? I should say, I create quite a lot of case pages (eg Category:English contract case law and Category:United Kingdom labour law cases) and this is the format I've found to just be the simplest, and I've been inserting more American cases recently (which is how I came across Shoplifter's very good contributions). Rylands v Fletcher is a decent example of how a fuller page looks, or Carlill v Carbolic. It'd be nice if we can have some uniformity between Commonwealth, EU and US cases, though I agree that it's still all recommendations, and I wouldn't want to push anything. Wikidea 22:35, 2 January 2011 (UTC)
I prefer "The Supreme Court's decision", which clarifies that it's not a section for a lower court opinion. "Judgment," like "facts", is simply too uninformative in the abstract. postdlf (talk) 02:01, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Delayed explanation from creator of these terms

As the user who AFAIK started using these header terms, let me explain (as I have somewhat modified them since someone decided to make them the standard, which I find flattering):

  • Background of the case: This should be considered optional, to be used only if there's some greater ongoing social (i.e., Brown v. Board of Education) or legal (Erie Railroad v. Tompkins), issue addressed or giving rise to the case (Not that either of those articles have such sections, but if I had created them, they would have. And of course they still could).
  • Underlying dispute or underlying prosecution: What gave rise to the case before it reached the courts (sometimes this requires an extensive treatment, cf. what I felt I had to do in Waters v. Churchill). This is IMO not optional.
  • Litigation: The progress of the case through the lower courts. The usefulness of having such an extensive section is that it allows the writer to explain the legal issues involved there instead of when you get to the Court's opinions. This is much easier now that Google Scholar gives you so much in the way of lower state and federal cases.
  • Before the Court: If possible, discuss the briefs and oral arguments here (if there's enough, you may even need separate sections). For the former note who filed amici, ways in which the argument has changed or responded to lower-court rulings. For the latter write about significant discussions that emerge, with pithy quotes from the lawyers and/or justices (You will probably wind up quoting Scalia if he's involved; if Thomas says anything it should be quoted, even if he just asks to go to the bathroom :-)).
  • Decision, or, if it's unanimous with no concurrences even (again, thank you, Justice Scalia), Opinion: I write a short intro graf laying out how the opinions played out ... who did what and what they said. Then I summarize the individual opinions in their own sections if they're long enough to require that (Short opinions, like White in Mancusi v. DeForte, can be touched on in a paragraph).
  • Reaction: An optional section for contemporaneous reactions from the parties, major news outlets and commentators, if any exists.
  • Disposition: What happened to the case after remand (See O'Connor v. Ortega for why long sections on this sort of thing are possible and sometimes necessary). Often a good place to squeeze in some mention of what later happened to the parties (a subject on which a whole book could be written, IMO), like Ernesto Miranda getting retried, reconvicted and then dying in a bar fight, or Harry Tompkins living out the remainder of his life eking out a living with only one good arm (And, I'd love to know, whatever happened to Henry Alford after the Court let him cop his eponymous plea?).
  • Subsequent jurisprudence. Case law, not only later cases heard by the Court that address similar issues, but also from the appellate courts (and sometimes state courts) further interpreting the decision. The articles I wrote on Waters and Mancusi wound up having a lot of these, as fairly seminal decisions.
  • Analysis and commentary. Summary of significant comment on the case from law reviews or other reliable sources.

Daniel Case (talk) 16:14, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

"Underlying dispute" is an obtuse way of describing the "background of the case," i.e., the facts giving rise to the case. "Litigation" is too broad because it covers the entirety of a court case's history, including proceedings before the Supreme Court. It needs to be more specific: "Lower court proceedings", with subheaders for each stage if necessary ("trial court decision", "Court of Appeals decision," etc.). As I noted above, "Decision" is too generic; we need to specify that it's the Supreme Court's decision. "Disposition" is synonymous with holding (i.e., was it vacated, remanded, affirmed", not with "subsequent proceedings," which is what that section needs to be called instead to clarify that it's for stages in the litigation after the Supreme Court's decision. postdlf (talk) 17:12, 26 April 2011 (UTC)
Well, I thought "underlying" was better than "instant dispute" because not a lot of people understand that word in the legal sense. "Background" is to me better used for any larger issue when it's present (I think most non-legal readers will, scanning the article, figure out what "underlying dispute" means because all these articles are essentially a narrative. "Facts" suggests a disconnected section that might merely be a bulleted list.

"Facts" also has a judicial meaning that I think would be confusing here ... "facts" are what juries find from the narratives offered them. For example, in Ontario v. Quon the jury found that the police department's pager audit was work-related (and therefore permissible). That was considered a fact in the legal sense as a result, one the Ninth Circuit disagreed with but the Supreme Court did not. Compare Connick v. Myers, where the district court judge found as a matter of fact that the plaintiff had been fired from her government job for her speech act, the appeals court agreed and so did the Supreme Court ... but the Supreme Court said it was OK to fire her for that since it wasn't related to a matter of public concern. In neither case does some document in the official record state that "fact" ... it was found by the triers in question.

I'll go with "lower court proceedings" with subsections where appropriate, but I think we need something less wordy, and we also need to be able to recognize the myriad ways that a case gets to the Supreme Court (Stoner v. California, for instance, was heard directly from the California Courts of Appeal after that state's Supreme Court refused to hear it). I mean, what about cases where an adminstrative body first heard the case, then it was appealed into the circuits? I don't think, say, the National Labor Relations Board or the Merit Systems Protection Board count as courts per se, yet they were the dispute resolvers of first instance in a number of cases. At one point I used "litigation history" with subsections ... maybe that's better?

I think when someone reads the heds in an article that clearly identifies itself as being about a Supreme Court case, they're capable of figuring out that "Decision" refers to the Supreme Court's decision, not the lower courts (also because it will often have subsections for the individual opinions, something I don't do for appeals court decisions (nor do I think we should, even for complicated en banc denial free-for-alls)). Not making any assumptions about your readers means you also don't assume they're idiots.

How about "subsequent history" which jibes with what we use in the infobox? Daniel Case (talk) 04:00, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Is it possible?

Is it possible to get the case law articles written in non-legal terms? I've read about a dozen of them for a college project, and can't figure out the basics. I'm not law trained, and have no idea what some of these cases mean, or even what some of the legal terms, especially the latin ones, mean. Thank you. 75.222.84.82 (talk) 00:32, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh dear. Which ones? Wikidea 00:56, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Questions and a suggestion

Is there a good resource online for citations used in the case template, eg. Lexis and Supreme Court Reports? I noticed that if the "Citation" field is left blank, the US Vol. and US Page fields won't display. Bug or intentional?

I had the idea of starting an IRC channel dedicated to this project. I spoke to Richwales about it. I think it would be very helpful for coordination and collaboration, exchanging tips and information, and as a generally pleasant hang-out for likeminded people. As you can see, there are plenty of projects who have their own channels to this end. What do you think? I volunteer to set it up if there's sufficient interest. Shoplifter (talk) 08:01, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Lochner era

I've done major revisions to this article which was in dire need of an overhaul. All comments and/or edits welcome! Shoplifter (talk) 19:06, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

US Collaboration reactivated & Portal:United States starting next

Casliber recently posted a suggestion on the talk page for WikiProject United States about getting the US Wikipedians Collaboration page going again in an effort to build up articles for GA through FA class. See Wikipedia:U.S. Wikipedians' notice board/USCOTM. After several days of work from him the page is up and ready for action. A few candidates have already been added for you to vote on or you can submit one using the directions provided. If you are looking for inspiration here is a link to the most commonly viewed articles currently under the scope of Wikiproject United States. There are tons of good articles in the various US related projects as well so feel free to submit any article relating to US topics (not just those under the scope of WPUS). This noticeboard is intended for ‘’’All’’’ editors working on US subjects, not just those under WPUS.

The next item I intend to start updating is Portal:United States if anyone is interested in helping. Again this is not specific to WPUS and any help would be greatly appreciated to maximize visibility of US topics. The foundation has already been established its just a matter of updating the content with some new images, biographies and articles. Please let leave a comment on the Portals talk page or let me know if you have any questions or ideas. --Kumioko (talk) 23:27, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Opinion writer and case with the same name?

I'm currently working on O'Connor v. Ortega. One thing I noticed is that the plurality opinion in that case was written by Justice O'Connor.

That coincidence might make an interesting DYK hook, I've thought. Especially if we can find a way within the limits of WP:NOTOR to show that it's the only time, or one of a few, in which a majority or plurality opinion has been written by a justice with the same name as the case (I half think Rehnquist assigned that opinion to her with that in mind).

Can anyone do some search or something that could prove (or disprove, as might happen) this? It doesn't seem like it would be hard. Daniel Case (talk) 02:43, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I was fascinated by this, so I looked through some cases. I did stumble upon Kennedy v. Louisiana, written by Justice Kennedy. Perhaps there are more, though I am still sure this is a rare phenomenon. Verkhovensky (talk) 03:17, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
I also found United States v. White, with the plurality written by Justice Byron White. Verkhovensky (talk) 03:34, 27 January 2011 (UTC)
Interesting. Are there any older ones? Daniel Case (talk) 05:23, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Florida v. Thomas - any third-party coverage of this decision?

This case is likely to appear on the main page via DYK in the next few days, but has no references other than the Supreme Court decision itself. Does anyone have any commentary on the decision from academic / practitioner journals that can be added, to help prove notability? (My jurisdictional knowledge is limited to English law, so I don't know where to start looking for USSC case comments!) Thanks, BencherliteTalk 21:16, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I perused the law reviews citing this and there's not much there. Since the Court dismissed the writ of certiorari as improvidently granted, there's really nothing for legal scholars to comment on. I doubt you'll find anything in the mass media other than disappointment that the Court "dodged" the issue or some such. Only three appellate decisions discuss it in any detail, but that's obviously limited by the fact that the Court didn't reach the merits.--Chaser (talk) 21:53, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Case review

I'm on a mission of turning red links into blue ones over at List of United States Supreme Court Cases. My last project was Railroad Commission Cases. These old cases are quite difficult to pin down by a layman like myself, and so I would be very glad if someone would like to review it for inconsistencies or errors. Thanks! Next up is Brown v New Jersey. Shoplifter (talk) 22:25, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

North v. Russell

According to Justice of the peace, North v. Russell is a very important case, but it doesn't have an article. Could someone please try to put one together? Citation is 427 U.S. 328 (1976). Nyttend (talk) 04:17, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I added it to the to-do list [1].--Chaser (talk) 05:05, 31 January 2011 (UTC)
I've begun working on it; feel free to add or revise. Shoplifter (talk) 13:28, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Flagged articles code

What code in the document gives rise to the unremovable "Flagged U.S. Supreme Court articles" category? Shoplifter (talk) 07:55, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Collaboration for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution

Greetings, the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution has been chosen as the U.S. Wikipedians Collaboration of the Month for February 2011. As a project who has identified this article to be in your scope we encourage you to edit this article and help to build it up to better explain the subject and to get it promoted. --Kumioko (talk) 20:49, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Portal:United States is a current featured portal candidate. Please feel free to leave comments. -- RichardF (talk) 14:29, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

A very interesting tool of the Wikimedia Toolserver is called WikiProject Popular pages lists. These lists are similar to project-related article lists like U. S. article lists used for generating assessment statistics. The Popular pages lists include the rank, total views, average daily views, quality and importance ratings for the listed articles. Here is the full list of projects using popular pages lists. An FAQ also is available at User:Mr.Z-man/Popular pages FAQ.

I recently added links to lists of popular pages as shown below to the U.S. Portal - WikiProjects box and the nominations sections for each of the selected articles boxes.

Portal:United States/Projects/Popular pages

Because this project was not included, I am bringing up the popular pages tool here. This tool makes it very easy to track three of four balancing dimensions when selecting articles for showcasing at a portal - quality, importance and popularity. When tracking the fourth dimension, topic, the related article lists tool (such as for U.S. article lists tool) also might be useful by filtering on categories of interest.

If you do decide to use this tool, feel free to update Portal:United States/Projects/Popular pages as well.

Regards, RichardF (talk) 02:20, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Skilling v. United States

I think that members of this project need to comment on this AFD. Specifically, the issue is: Are decisions of the U.S. Supreme Court per se notable, or come close to it? Bearian (talk) 19:45, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Wikisource:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases

Hey everyone, I'd like to invite you all to participate in WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases on Wikisource. My colleague Slaporte runs a bot that is currently in the process of importing every Supreme Court decision from bulk.resource.org's collection of the United States Reports. We need help guiding and cleaning up after the bot by fixing lists of case names, disambiguating common case names, proofreading cases, etc. If you want to get involved, you can check out our to do list, add your name to our list of participants, or contact me.

I'm also going to add a more prominent link to the Wikisource project on this project page. Feel free to revert this if you feel that it is spammy or inappropriate. - LegalSkeptic (talk) 17:58, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Barber v Thomas (2010)

Would someone involved in the Supreme Court project be willing to look at the edits that have been added to the page on Barber v. Thomas <http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Barber_v._Thomas>? A lot of material has been added to discuss a personal grievance of someone who thinks he should have had more input into the litigation of the case, including personal attacks on several individuals (including myself) who were pro bono participants in that litigation. I don't want to get into an editing war; opinions and point of view aside, the comments are basically factual, but of no general interest, it seems to me, and border on vandalism of the article. The original author was CDogSimmons <http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/User:Cdogsimmons> Thanks for your consideration, and for all your good work. 108.2.147.192 (talk) 03:11, 27 March 2011 (UTC)

I removed that section. It's been uncited for months. Anyway, we usually don't include that level of detail about the parties' arguments--often we don't credit who made them at all, other than, for example, "Barber" or "Barber's attorneys."--Chaser (talk) 18:20, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

Connick v. Thompson

I updated the stub article Connick v. Thompson to reflect its being decided on March 29, 2011. I added a small blurb of information on the decision and a reference link to the official opinion of the court. I also added appropriate project tags to the talk page. Somebody with a bit more expertise than me might want to flesh it out a bit. Thanks. Safiel (talk) 19:53, 1 April 2011 (UTC)

I have added a summation of the opinion of the court to the article, but admittedly it needs work. Safiel (talk) 17:46, 8 April 2011 (UTC)

Not listing all cases?

I noticed that it says " All inappropriate or nonexistent cases have been removed from the list."

Does that mean you are removing articles about supreme court cases? Shouldn't all of them be listed in wikipedia? I already noticed Bertman v. J.A. Kirsch Company doesn't have an article here. Can you make sure none others are missing please? 69.132.79.61 (talk) 19:26, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what that refers to; some edit long since past. Maybe there was a lot of vandalism or incorrect case names on some list? Anyway, the standard is that any case for which SCOTUS writes a full opinion merits its own article, which are presently about 80 each year. Here is the current term's list, and our corresponding list and opinion/vote table on Wikipedia. Many of these case articles simply haven't been written yet.

Those that don't ordinarily qualify for their own articles are the many thousands of cases that the Supreme Court disposes of by summary order, particularly if they deny certiorari, unless they can pass the ordinary WP:GNG standard. If I've found the right case (377 U.S. 995), it looks like Bertman is one of those, and thus won't qualify for an article unless the lower court opinion or the case as a whole was notable in some way. A justice dissented from the denial of cert. in Bertman, but this again doesn't guarantee that it merits an article. Such opinions relating to orders can still be covered in the opinion lists for each justice by term (e.g., 2010 term United States Supreme Court opinions of Samuel Alito), which can incorporate brief summaries, though only the past ten years have been covered so far, and most don't have more than barebones lists of the opinions at present.

So no, we don't list all cases (which again number in the thousands every year and typically generate no substantive content from the Court), just all opinions. postdlf (talk) 20:18, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

A case that gets DIG'ed or GVR'ed may still satisfy the notability requirement as these procedures are unusual enough that many reliable sources will comment on the case and suggest reasons the court may have acted as it did; likewise the very rare dismissals after oral argument. (In the case of notable dismissals, the article should probably be titled with its caption in the lower court, with just a redirect from the SCOTUS caption if it is both different and likely to be referenced by that name.) 121a0012 (talk) 05:25, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
A case for which the Court denies cert. really isn't a SCOTUS case in any meaningful sense, so only if it's demonstrated that the lower court opinions/proceedings received significant coverage from multiple reliable sources should it have an article. GVR's are usually short per curiam opinions, are they not? So those get covered in brief via summary articles like 2009 term per curiam opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States, not ordinarily in stand-alone articles. If they are just summary orders (such as when a case is summarily vacated and remanded, without further comment, for reconsideration in light of another recent SCOTUS case) then again, there needs to be a demonstration that WP:GNG is met for that case. Only full SCOTUS opinions should be presumed notable, because only those necessarily represent the Court's substantive output, and only those inevitably do have GNG coverage, even if we can't demonstrate that initially. postdlf (talk) 17:16, 28 April 2011 (UTC)
I agree with Postdlf. Briscoe v. Virginia is a good example. The parties submitted merits briefs, the court heard oral arguments, and the case was ultimately GVRed in a per curiam that looks more like a summary order. This case has a strong claim to notability under the general notability guideline, but we shouldn't simply presume that a GVR or a DIG disposition is notable. It's easy enough to look for two or three secondary sources to confirm that it is.--Chaser (away) - talk 17:44, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

That said, feel free to copy the Court's order lists to Wikisource, just not Wikipedia. Here's a typical day's orders: nine pages of routine matters. Essentially, it's just data. postdlf (talk) 18:33, 28 April 2011 (UTC)

Collaboration on US Supreme Court case article improvement

Wehwalt and myself will be collaborating together to improve the quality of this article. Others are welcome to help out with research, writing, and copyediting. :) -- Cirt (talk) 18:25, 15 June 2011 (UTC)

Created new portal = Supreme Court of the United States

I've created a new portal for this topic. Collaboration and help would be appreciated, just drop a note at Portal talk:Supreme Court of the United States. -- Cirt (talk) 17:07, 16 June 2011 (UTC)

Portal:Supreme Court of the United States at peer review

A new portal Portal:Supreme Court of the United States is now up for portal peer review, the review page is at Wikipedia:Portal peer review/Supreme Court of the United States/archive1. I put a bit of effort into this and feedback would be appreciated prior to featured portal candidacy. Thank you for your time, -- Cirt (talk) 17:50, 19 June 2011 (UTC)

Created new article on US Supreme Court case = Time, Inc. v. Hill

I have created a new article on the U.S. Supreme Court case, Time, Inc. v. Hill. Feedback and especially help with additional research would be appreciated, at the new article's talk page. Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 00:18, 10 July 2011 (UTC)

Portal:Supreme Court of the United States is a candidate for Featured Portal, with discussion at Wikipedia:Featured portal candidates/Portal:Supreme Court of the United States. — Cirt (talk) 16:03, 12 July 2011 (UTC)

Photo of Justice Kennedy

Hi, it looks like there has been difficultly getting a properly licensed photo of Justice Kennedy. Please see this discussion for more details. Any ideas? -- Sailing to Byzantium (msg), 18:44, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

There are at least a couple on Commons (Commons:Category:Anthony Kennedy) that are clearly attributed to the SCOTUS staff photographer (and thus PD-USgov): File:Anthony Kennedy (2009, cropped).jpg and File:Anthony Kennedy Official.jpg. postdlf (talk) 20:01, 4 August 2011 (UTC)
Excellent, thanks a lot for the pointers! -- Sailing to Byzantium (msg), 20:56, 4 August 2011 (UTC)

Category:Petitions for a writ of certiorari listed for deletion

FYI. postdlf (talk) 17:04, 8 August 2011 (UTC)

Wong Kim Ark FAC

I've nominated United States v. Wong Kim Ark as a Featured Article candidate. Richwales (talk · contribs) 04:11, 29 August 2011 (UTC)

And again, apparently: Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/United States v. Wong Kim Ark/archive2. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:34, 4 February 2012 (UTC)

Discussion about template for citing court cases

There is a discussion going on at Template talk:Cite court#Update to citation/core over the preferred look of cites generated via the {{Cite court}} template (designed for use when citing sources). Some people are suggesting that court case citations should conform to other types of references (such as for books, journal articles, etc.), while others insist that the accepted Bluebook norm needs to be followed at any cost (even if this means that the core "citation" template code used for every other kind of reference can't be used for legal cites). This question came up because United States v. Wong Kim Ark is currently being considered as a Featured Article candidate and is therefore getting additional scrutiny regarding the look and feel of its references. Hopefully some more people can go over there and get involved. Richwales (talk · contribs) 23:09, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Discussion on content in Bush v. Gore

More eyes and voices, please. postdlf (talk) 04:04, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

Coeur Alaska, Inc. v. Southeast Alaska Conservation Council

FYI I have nominated Coeur Alaska, Inc. v. Southeast Alaska Conservation Council as a good article.--kelapstick(bainuu) 09:16, 4 September 2011 (UTC)

More on Wong Kim Ark Featured Article candidacy

Some questions have arisen regarding the content and sourcing of United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which is currently being considered as a Featured Article candidate. Any interested editors may wish to go to Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/United States v. Wong Kim Ark/archive1 and participate in the discussion (go down to the end of the page) as you feel is appropriate. Richwales (talk · contribs) 07:11, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Opinion of the Court

The suggested outline says that the section titled "Opinion of the Court" should include a subsection for the dissent, but that seems clearly wrong. The "Opinion of the Court" does not include any dissent. An easy fix would be to change "Opinion of the Court" to "Opinion". Or something like this:

Subsections or a paragraph or subsequent sections for concurring and dissenting opinions can also be added as appropriate. Should be in the form of "Concurrences" and "Dissents" for section headers.

This issue has arisen at Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/United_States_v._Wong_Kim_Ark/archive1.Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:35, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

I have long used "Decision" as the section hed, with "Majority", "X concurrence" and "dissent" as appropriate. I suppose "Opinion of the Court" would be appropriate only for a unanimous decision with no concurrences. Daniel Case (talk) 04:13, 2 October 2011 (UTC)
I think any of the above are fine, depending on circumstances. I have edited that section of the project page to make it clearer the outline is a suggestion, and variations are acceptable.--Chaser (talk) 03:44, 3 October 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for the improvement.Anythingyouwant (talk) 04:13, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Category issues

Savidan (talk · contribs) has been removing a lot of categories he thinks are redundant from case articles, such as removing a First Amendment category when it's in a free speech category. Obviously not all free speech case law is under the First Amendment, so this is . Anyway, we need more eyes to review these rather voluminous changes--check his contribution history, unfortunately none of his edits were made with any edit summaries, so we just need to check every edit to any case article. postdlf (talk) 22:48, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

Currently the free speech category is just for Constitutional cases, based on its own contents and categorization. If you think there is need to make it a wider category (including decisions grounded in statutes or state constitutions) that can be done. Given that all the cases currently in that category are constitutional, I think it makes the most sense to take your case to WP:CFD and suggest a move to "Category:United States First Amendment free speech case law" and then create a new "Category:United States free speech case law" category with that broader scope of which the former would be a subcategory. That is a separate issue from whether an article about a case based on the free speech clause of the first amendment should be in both a First Amendment free speech clause category and a First Amendment category. The larger point is that categories like "Category:First Amendment case law" should be container categories. It's not useful to lump all the free exercise, establishment, speech, press, and association categories into the same category (at least not compared to the alternative of having them in sub-categories unified by a First Amendment case law category). Savidan 22:53, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
The current category is named for the wider subject area. The best outcome might be to remove Category:United States First Amendment case law as a parent of Category:United States free speech case law. In other cases, however, you don't even have that argument of a subject area being so tied to one Amendment: you removed the 14th Amendment category from Lum v. Rice, an equal protection case, but there are also EP cases under the Fifth Amendment, just as there are due process cases under both the 5th and 14th. Bottom line is that unless the subject area categories expressly name a constitutional provision, they are not redundant to the categories for specific constitutional provisions.

One exception I see would be the category you just created, Category:Incorporation case law, as Incorporation of the Bill of Rights is a doctrine unique to the Fourteenth Amendment. Though that category is poorly named at present because it could also be about case law on forming corporations.

So the question remains whether categories should be created for the intersection of these areas of law with the specific constitutional provisions, such as Category:United States First Amendment free speech case law or Category:United States First Amendment free exercise of religion case law. postdlf (talk) 23:12, 5 October 2011 (UTC)

There is a need for a single category that contains only cases concerning the free speech clause of the First Amendment to the federal constitution (which would be a subcategory of "Category:United States First Amendment case law"). Whether this is accomplished by moving the current category to "Category:United States First Amendment free speech case law" and then creating a new "Category:United States free speech case law" category (that would not be a subcategory of "Category:United States First Amendment case law" but would be a parent category of "Category:United States First Amendment free speech case law"), or as you propose, I am indifferent to.
I acknowledge that there are equal protection and due process cases under the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. However, it is not helpful to the reader to have four categories (5th DP, 5th EP, 14th DP, and 14th EP). It would be even more unhelpful to just put cases in the 5th or 14th amendment top-level categories, leaving the DP and EP cases separated from cases within the same doctrinal stream and mixed in with dozens to hundreds of unrelated cases (both the 5th and 14th amendments do more than EP and DP). Because the courts freely cite between the DP/EP cases regardless of the triggering amendment, it is more helpful just to have DP and EP categories and make both subcategories of both the 5th and 14th amendment categories.
As for renaming the Incorporation category, I am open to that. Feel free to start a WP:CFD discussion to that effect. Another key point with incorporation is that, once the Court has made the decision to incorporate a certain right against the states (say, the privilege against self-incrimination), it is not useful to put other subsequent self-incrimination cases in the 14th Amendment category just because they involved state prosecutions. The substantive discussions in those cases are only going to involve self-incrimination, not the 14th amendment (of course, if a concurrence or dissent devotes some space to the concept of incorporation, that cases can be included in the incorporation category). Savidan 23:29, 5 October 2011 (UTC)
"Moving" a category just means renaming it, as a category really has no existence apart from its name; it is not defined by its current contents. So your suggestion about the free speech category would mean creating a new category focused on the First Amendment and then moving articles from the current one to that new one. I'm still skeptical, but you seem determined so I'll say go ahead and try it and if it doesn't work it can be undone with little trouble. Another consideration, however, is that it isn't necessarily a bad thing for a category to be large, and lists can function quite well to document subgroups of a category without breaking up the navigational unity of that category. For example, including in a blanket First Amendment category something like a List of case law involving the free press clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, etc. This would also be better for cases that involve multiple clauses or that muddy the separation between them, like the many cases in which the Court analyzed religion-related claims as free speech under public forum doctrine.

I agree with you on how we should parent the EP case category, but I still think it's helpful to have the particular amendment categorized as well, as there may be discussion in a case relevant to the history of the particular amendment even though the Court decided upon the same EP test for either.

I also agree with you on the Incorporation category; I've always removed 14th amendment categories from cases in which it was just automatically applied because the Court had already determined by that point that a particular Bill of Rights provision was incorporated. Do you have a suggestion for a more clear and precise category name? postdlf (talk) 15:31, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

I've looked and I have yet to find a single article on Wikipedia about a case that involved free speech as defined by a statute or state constitution rather than the First Amendment. So, we can cross that bridge when we get to it.
As for lists, certainly we can have both categories and lists. But, categories are at their most useful when they are defined functionally. Someone reading an article about a case involving the Takings Clause is far more likely to want to click on a category that will take them to other Takings Clause cases than to click on a category that will take them to an undifferentiated mush of grand jury, double jeopardy, self-incrimination, due process, and takings cause cases. Noting the fact that all of these clauses are included in the Fifth Amendment is best accomplished by a parent category (and perhaps a list as well).
If cases involve multiple clauses, there is perhaps a judgement call. The increasing trend of the Supreme Court is to grant cert to discrete issues, but for older cases it wasn't uncommon to consider, for example, several constitutional objections to the same conviction. If a case involves the actual adjudication of five distinct constitutional rights, there is no harm in having it in all five categories.
I'm glad we agree on not including cases that involve incorporation without deciding the issue of incorporation in the 14th Amendment category. This should be done by a list, if at all. I think a list is also the better strategy for distinguishing between DP/EP cases that involve the federal or state governments. It's simply not salient enough to justify the marginal category clutter. The high order bit is that the case involved due process; the fact that due process was channeled through the 5th or 14th amendment is of a lower order. Savidan 19:35, 12 October 2011 (UTC)
Oh and I don't have a suggestion for the name of the Incorporation of the category. I'm more concerned with category contents and structure than with their names. I think it is fine as is but would not oppose a reasonable change. Savidan 19:37, 12 October 2011 (UTC)

List of pending United States Supreme Court cases

Since I've retired, no one has done much to maintain this. Therefore I have isolated it from the other lists. I was about to remove it from templates, when I realized we might need consensus to actually delete it. What do you all think? I like it if people will maintain it. I think wiki does well to have locally some of the same information as SCOTUS-blog, etc. But if we cannot keep the article more up to date, then I think it is best to roll it back into the list of Roberts Court cases.--Chaser (talk) 15:59, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

We don't need to go through AFD if it's just merged/redirected, as that's just a normal editing process.

Your comments are appreciated on the above discussion re: categories, btw. postdlf (talk) 17:04, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Discussion regarding case law citation formatting and style

Your comments are welcome here; please also read this thread for more context.

Also, a discussion here at TT:Cite court about more specific issues, such as whether an access date should be given for links to online databases such as Findlaw. postdlf (talk) 19:54, 9 October 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject National Register of Historic Places/Fall 2011 Photo Contest

WP:NRHP is having a Fall Photo Contest running from Oct. 21-Dec. 4, 2011. I'd like to encourage anybody who enjoys photography, as well as anybody who is interested in historic places to participate as a photographer, a sponsor, or both.

One way that an individual editor or a project can participate is to sponsor their own challenge. For example, somebody here might want to include a challenge such as "A barnstar will be awarded to the photographer who adds the most photos to the NRHP county lists of previously non-illustrated NRHP sites related to U.S. Supreme Court Cases." To sponsor a challenge all you need to do is come up with an idea, post it on the contest page, and do the small bit of work needed to judge the winner(s).

Any and all contributions appreciated.

Smallbones (talk) 03:10, 13 October 2011 (UTC)

Disambiguation

I came across List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 81 which contained a link to a disambiguation page The Continental. I also noticed that it incorrectly linked to The Thames. Apparently these were ship names and the court case was named for the ship rather than the more typical X v. Y. While cases with titles like X v. Y are typically disambiguated with the case year, that seems unhelpful with cases identified by the ship name. I disambiguated as The Thames (U.S. Supreme Court case) and The Continental (U.S. Supreme Court case). If some other phrase is preferred feel free to update (though I'd suggest documenting that in your project pages somewhere). older ≠ wiser 18:33, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

This is a reasonable solution. Savidan 19:19, 21 October 2011 (UTC)

Article needed for Communist Party of the United States v. Subversive Activities Control Board?

While working on W. E. B. Du Bois, I stumbled on Communist Party of the United States v. Subversive Activities Control Board, which appears to be undocumented in WP. I cannot tell if it is a SCOTUS case, or just a Fed appeals case, but in any case it appears to meet WP Notability requirements. I don't have any time to work on it now, but if anyone in this SCOTUS project could create it, or at least a stub, that would be great. --Noleander (talk) 07:27, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

It's SCOTUS, and it looks like there were two opinions in the case: s:Communist Party of the United States v. Subversive Activities Control Board (one of the links listed there is just an order). postdlf (talk) 14:15, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
Thanks for finding that, I was unaware cases are in WP source. The important decision that relates to Du Bois is the 1961 decision (the final one). I think that it merits a WP article. --Noleander (talk) 14:43, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
Every SCOTUS opinion merits an article.  ; ) Not just my own bias on that, consensus has spoken repeatedly. Three ways to go on this: two separate articles about each opinion, with links referring between them; one article for the whole legal proceeding, with both opinions covered in that single article; one article for the whole legal proceeding, with both opinions summarized in that article and each also having separate articles. postdlf (talk) 15:09, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
Sounds great. Normally I would pitch in and help write it, but I'm in the middle of preparing two articles for FA nomination, so I'm swamped with other tasks. --Noleander (talk) 15:33, 14 November 2011 (UTC)
I'll see what I can do later today. postdlf (talk) 16:19, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Take a look: Communist Party of the United States v. Subversive Activities Control Board. Just did what I could from the Wikisource copies of the Court's opinions, which are unfortunately rife with scan errors. postdlf (talk) 00:25, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Cool. Thanks a lot. --Noleander (talk) 00:32, 15 November 2011 (UTC)

Wong Kim Ark second FAC

Please note that United States v. Wong Kim Ark is being considered again now for possible promotion to Featured Article status. Interested editors may wish to visit the article's Featured Article candidacy page and offer supporting, opposing, or neutral comments as they see fit. — Richwales (talk) 17:13, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

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