The most recent development in American case reporting is electronic storage and retrieval.

Two major companies offer this service:

LEXIS is also offered in a scaled down version called Academic Universe—this is usually used by universities that don’t have law schools.

The primary advantage of electronic access is the ability to do full text searches.

This removes the constraint of using publisher indexes and digests.

It can be argued that the professional editorial treatment found in the bound volumes keep them from becoming obsolete.

There is some variation between how cases look in print depending on the publisher.

There are some elements of almost universal utility.

The caption (also called the name or style) of a case gives the names of the parties involved in the case.

The most common form is X v. Y.

The first party listed is usually the party bringing the suit to court—the plaintiff.

In criminal matters, this will usually be the state.

The second party listed is usually the defendant.

If the case is an appeal, then the first name with be the appellant or petitioner and the second is the appellee or respondent.

This means that when a trial court decision is appealed in a criminal case, the names will be reversed: State v. Smith becomes Smith v. State on appeal.

In matters concerning juveniles (and estates in civil law) the phrase In re is often used followed by the name of the party the case concerns.

Short for "in regard to" or concerning.

Example: In re Adoption of Baby Boy

The docket number (sometimes called a record number) is assigned by the court clerk to the case when it is filed initially for the court’s consideration.

It is the number the court uses to keep track of documents related to the case.

This is useful in legal research for following a case before it is decided.

Slip opinions are usually cited by docket number.

Published opinions are cited by the reporter volume in which they appear and the page number on which the caption appears.

The citation does not always appear, but can be readily determined by reference to the bound volume.

Citations should include the year of the decision.

E.g., 450 U.S. 200 (1980).

Supreme court reporters published by private companies always cite the competition and the official citation.

A summary of the case’s facts and holdings.

In some jurisdictions, the syllabus is prepared by the court.

Note that a court may dispose of several issues in one case.

Material that describes the various points decided by the court.

Headnotes are not a part of the holding—only the opinion itself is binding.

If the headnotes conflict with the opinion, then the opinion prevails—use these only as finding aids.

Most headnotes are prepared by legal experts working for the publishers.

They are designed to help researchers locate relevant legal material.

The names of the attorneys representing the parties to a case usually appear before the opinion.

The name of the judge actually writing the opinion appears at the beginning.

Appeals courts will usually have more than one judge hearing a case.

If the judges cannot agree on a decision, more than one opinion may result.

The official opinion of the court is the one agreed on by a majority of judges, and appears first.

If a judge is not expressly listed in a concurring or dissenting opinion, it is implied that the judge agreed with the opinion of the court.

The Supreme Court is the court of last resort in any federal case and has final authority in federal issues raised in state courts.

The first reports were compiled by individuals and were known as nominative reporters.

These first ninety volumes of U.S. Reports are still cited by the name of the individual reporter.

The official reporter for the Supreme Court of the United States is the United States Reports.

Cited as U.S.

This official reporter includes a syllabus—preliminary paragraphs that summarize the case and presenting the holding of the court.

These official reports are notoriously slow, taking around three years to appear in a bound volume.

Published by the Lawyers Co-operative publishing company.

Commonly referred to as "Lawyers’ Edition", it is cited as L.ed.

After the one-hundredth volume, Lawyers’ Edition was split into a second volume.

The second volume is cited L.Ed.2d

The editors publish a summary of the case as well as their own headnotes.

Short summaries of the briefs of counsel-these permit study on each side’s line of reasoning.

Lawyers’ Edition is part of the "Total Client-Service Library" a name of the research system developed by the publisher which links them to other publications dealing with the same issue.

Like lawyers’ co-op, West prepares its own summary, called a synopsis, and headnotes for each case.

West’s "key number" system links cases with all other cases on the same topic in the national reporter system.

These are the most popular computerized databases of opinion texts.

Computers allow for keyword searches and do not limit the researcher to the publishers’ subject headings.

Below the SC in the federal system are the intermediate appellate courts and trial courts.

Congress was given the power to create the lower federal courts by the constitution.

There are now 13 US Courts of Appeal, consisting of the first through eleventh Circuits, the District of Columbia Circuit, and the federal circuit.

Each court of Appeals hears cases from trial courts within its circuit, and its decisions are binding on those lower courts.

The trial courts in the federal system are the United States District Courts.

Arkansas is in the Eighth District.

West began publishing Federal Reporter in 1880, which reports cases decisions for both circuit (appeal) and district (trial) courts.

Cited as F. and sometimes Fed. in older works.

Later on, it was decided that this system was too unwieldy, and the federal district courts came to be published in a set known as Federal Supplement, F.Supp.

Only a very few of cases result in a written opinion.

Jurisdiction—the authority of by which courts take on and decide cases.

Two types of jurisdiction:

1. Jurisdiction over the subject matter

2. Jurisdiction over the person

The court must have jurisdiction over both for a case to proceed.

Jurisdiction over the person is usually obtained by forcing the defendant to appear before the court.

Generally courts cannot hear cases where crimes occurred outside the geographic boundary of the courts authority.

Ex. Louisiana can’t try me for killing someone in Arkansas—they do not have subject matter jurisdiction over an Arkansas crime.

Venue refers to the geographical location of the trial.

Changing courts in the same jurisdiction does not usually raise questions of proper venue.

The proper venue in a criminal matter is the county (in state cases) or district (in federal cases) where the crime took place.

The accused can request a change of venue.

Appropriate grounds must exist before a judge will approve the change—usually the defendant must have no chance at a fair trial in the first location for the court to move the trail.

The prosecution never has the right to change venue.

Some states merely select the jury in another county and transport them to the trial.

The prosecution must show that the crime took place in the proper county or district.

This, however, us usually only a preponderance of the evidence test.

Venue can be proven by circumstantial evidence.

1. If the act is a violation of federal law, it will be tried in federal court. (civil rights violations)

2. If the act is a violation of state law, it will be tried in that state (state code violation)

3. IF a case violates state and federal laws, it can be tried in both.

State’s have no right to prosecute federal criminal laws.

State supreme courts are the final say unless there are federal issues involved, such as constitutional rights violations.

Courts generally do not have the right to give advisory opinions—decisions must be made by the adversarial process.

Term used to describe the concept of two complete court systems.

Over 95% of criminal cases are tried in state courts.

Some counties prosecute more criminal cases per year than the entire federal system—LA County for example.

The US Supreme Court is the highest court in the federal system.

The court is made up of one chief justice and eight associate justices.

Justices are appointed by the president with the advise and consent of the senate.

Justices may be removed only by impeachment

The supreme court acts as a supervisory body over the entire federal system

In our system of justice, no one is guaranteed a perfect trail, only that it is substantially correct.

A miscarriage of justice occurs only if, based on the entire record, the appellate court concludes that it is probable that a result more favorable to the defendant would have been reached in the absence of error.

Errors of trail that deprive the defendant from presenting his version of the case are ordinarily reversible, since there is not method to evaluate whether or not a missing defense resulted in a miscarriage of justice.

When an appellate court reverses a conviction of a lower court, the case is returned to the original court for a determination at to whether the case will be retried or dismissed.

Exceptions to this rule occur when the appellate court rules that there was insufficient evidence to sustain the conviction, or the appellate court rules that the original court lacked jurisdiction to try the case.

The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public safety may require it.

The writ of habeas corpus is literally a request for the court to order the warden or jailer to produce the prisoner and justify why he is being detained.

The writ is often used by prisoners to attack their prison sentences.

Must be filed in a court with jurisdiction over the person doing the holding