united-states us-supreme-court legal-citation
How to cite a supreme court opinion in author-year format
<p>I'm citing the U.S. Supreme Court opinion <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/usrep347483/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Brown v Board of Education 347 U.S. 483</a> in an academic article that uses author-year in text citations. Hence I must deviate from the Bluebook style and unfortunately am completely unaware of best practices here.</p>
<p>For the year, I will simply use 1954, the date of the official report. Determining which author to use seems to pose a more difficult problem. Which author should I use? The justice who wrote the opinion? Currently I'm using &quot;USSC&quot;.</p>

<p>First of all, if the publication or outlet for which you are writing has a specific style guide, and that has a rule for citing court opinions, follow it.</p>
<p>If there is no such guide, or no such rule in the guide, my advice is <strong>not</strong> to try to shoehorn as court opinion into author/date format at all. Instead use a normal legal citation. I would cite that case as simply:</p>
<p>&quot;Brown v Board of Education 347 U.S. 483&quot;</p>
<p><a href="https://upresearch.lonestar.edu/chicago/legal" rel="nofollow noreferrer">This UPresearch page</a> says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Chicago Manual of Style, like both MLA and APA, defers to <em>The Bluebook</em> for legal citations.</p>
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
<p>Legal publications only need to be cited in the notes, not the bibliography (unless you have a secondary publication, like a book in which the legal publication appears, in which case CMOS takes over).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>See CMOS 14.288 Cases or court decisions—basic elements; CMOIS 14.289 United States Supreme Court decisions; CMOS  14.291 State- and local-court decisions; and CMOS 14.290 Lower federal-court decisions</p>
<p><a href="https://lib.westfield.ma.edu/c.php?g=354010&amp;p=2388428" rel="nofollow noreferrer">This page from Ely Library</a> says:</p>
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<p>REFERENCE LIST ENTRY</p>
<p>Basic Format<br />
Name v. Name, Volume Source Page (Date).</p>
<p>Note: The volume and page numbers refer to U.S. Reports. All reporting services include this information. Ignore the &quot;Cite As&quot; at the head of the page in Supreme Court Reporter, because this form of the citation is not used in APA style.</p>
<p>Example<br />
<em>United States v. Lane</em>, 474 U.S. 438 (1986).</p>
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<p>If you are referring to specific pages of a decision, use this...<br />
Name v. Name, Volume Source First Page, Specific pg(s) (Date).</p>
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<p>TEXT CITATION</p>
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<p>Basic Form<br />
Name v. Name (Year)<br />
(Name v. Name, Year)</p>
<p>Examples</p>
<p>The Supreme Court has held in United States v. Lane (1986) that misjoinder under Rule 8(b) is subject to harmless-error analysis.</p>
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<blockquote>
<p>The Supreme Court has held that misjoinder under Rule 8(b) is subject to harmless-error analysis (United States v. Lane, 1986).</p>
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<p>The page <a href="https://irsc.libguides.com/chicago/publicdocs" rel="nofollow noreferrer">&quot;Chicago Citation Style Guide: Legal and Public Documents&quot;</a> from ISRC Librarys says:</p>
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<div class="s-table-container">
<table class="s-table">
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Material Type</th>
<th>Footnote/Endnote</th>
<th>Bibliography</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>U.S. Supreme Court decisions</td>
<td>Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, 555 U.S. 460, 465 (2009).</td>
<td>Court cases are not included in the Bibliography.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Other courts decisions</td>
<td>Jackson v. Florida, No. SC18-1531 (Fla. June 13, 2019).</td>
<td>Court cases are not included in the Bibliography.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Constitutions</td>
<td>U.S. Const. amend. XIX.</td>
<td>Public documents are not included in the Bibliography.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Laws and statutes</td>
<td>Border Tunnel Prevention Act of 2012, Pub. L. No. 112-127, 126 Stat. 370 (2012).</td>
<td>Laws and statutes are not included in the Bibliography.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Government documents</td>
<td>U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, A Guide to Naturalization (Nov. 2016), 10. <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/files/article/M-476.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/files/article/M-476.pdf</a>.</td>
<td>U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. A Guide to Naturalization. Nov. 2016. <a href="https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/files/article/M-476.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.uscis.gov/sites/default/files/files/article/M-476.pdf</a>.</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div></blockquote>
