This section is a reference guide for readers for understanding the specific method of format for U.S. judicial court decisions and other various federal legal materials. This section was developed as a helpful tool for readers to search and verify the legal decisions or court cases discussed within this site.
U.S. Surpreme Court Cases
The format of a published United States Supreme Court case contains the following sets of data:
- The case name
- The volume number of the publication or reporter (first set)
- Abbreviation of the publication or reporter (second set)
- The first page number of the case (third set)
- The year of the case's decision
The preferred publication or reporter for citing U.S. Supreme Court cases is the United States Reports, which contains the official publication of the court's decisions. When using the United States Reports publication for citing cases, the abbreviation "U.S." is included. Using the 2005 case of United States v. Freddie J. Booker as an example, the case would be cited from the United States Reports as "United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2005)."
There are, however, unofficial publications or reporters of court decisions. (These reporters are likely to be published more often than the United States Reports publication.) The other reporters are the Supreme Court Reporter and the United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition accessed through LexisNexis. The volume and page numbers for both reporters are listed differently than the listing information that appears in the United States Reports. The same citation format for the United States Reports is used for citations from the Supreme Court Reporter and the United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition, but with different abbreviations of the publication: "S. Ct." for the Supreme Court Reporter, and "L. Ed." for the United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition. Again using the 2005 case of United States v. Freddie J. Booker as an example, the case would be cited from the Supreme Court Reporter as "United States v. Booker, 125 S. Ct. 738 (2005)," and "United States v. Booker, 160 L. Ed. 2d 621 (2005)" from the United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition.
When citing a Supreme Court case, the citations from each reporter can be used individually or altogether. In the example of United States v. Freddie J. Booker, the full citation of the case referencing all three reporters would appear as follows: "United States v. Booker, 543 U.S 220, 125 S. Ct. 738, 160 L. Ed. 2d 621 (2005)."
NOTE: The majority of legal cases, documents, or materials are cited using the styles outlined in The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (2015). Click here for more information on this resource.