Court citation
Sometimes someone will mention the name of a court case and you might notice some funny numbers after it, like this:
- Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973)
- Brown v. Board of Education 344 U.S. 1 (1952)
- Miranda v. Arizona 384 U.S. 436 (1966)
- Griswold v. Connecticut 381 U.S. 479, 85 S.Ct. 1678, 14 L.Ed.2d 510 (1965)
There is an important reason for having the citation number. There are many instances in which there is more than one case with the identical name. For example, if you wanted to look up the U.S. Supreme Court case of Miller v. California, you would find there are 4 cases (one [389 U.S. 968] decided in 1967, one [392 U.S. 616] in 1968, one [413 U.S. 15] in 1973 and one [418 U.S. 915] in 1974), involving different people named Miller, and all involving different issues. By having the citation number, you can look up exactly which case you were interested in.
These examples are all from the U.S. Supreme Court. Let's examine Miranda v. Arizona 384 U.S. 436 (1966) and show what all the elements are. Some of this may be obvious but I'll explain all of it.
- The name of the case is shown Miranda v. Arizona
- followed by a number, a name, another number and a number in parenthesis. "384 U.S. 436 (1966)"
- The first number (384) represents the volume number of the book the court case is published in.
- The name in the middle ("U.S.") indicates the reporter where the case is found. Here, "U.S." stands for United States Reports, the official reporter of decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court.
- The second number (436) represents the first page in volume 384 where the opinion appears.
- The (1966) indicates the year the case was decided. Usually, the parentheses will also contain an abbreviation that indicates which court decided the case. However, in citations of U.S. Supreme Court decisions, only the year is required.
In the case of Griswold v. Connecticut, there are two other references. The first, "S.Ct.", refers to a private company's reprinting of Supreme Court decisions called the "Supreme Court Reporter". The other, "L.Ed.2d", refers to the second series of the "Lawyer's Edition," another privately printed set of volumes of court decisions. That case can be found in Volume 381, Page 479 of United States Reports, in Volume 85, page 1678 of the private Supreme Court Reporter, and also Series 2, Volume 14, Page 510 of the Lawyer's Edition.
So, as another example, for Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973) if we went to a law library, we would find the case (which was decided in 1973) in volume 410 of United States Reports, starting on page 113.
Here is a second example, this time for a state court decision:
- Jackson v. Commonwealth, 583 S.E.2d 780 (Va. App. 2003).
- Jackson v. Commonwealth — the case name.
- 583 — the volume number of the reporter of decisions.
- S.E.2d — the specific reporter where the decision is published. This case can be found in the second series of the South Eastern Reporter, a regional reporter covering several southeastern states published by West Publishing Corporation as part of its National Reporter System.
- 780 — the first page in Volume 583 where the opinion appears.
- (Va. App. 2003) — indicates the court that decided the case, and the year. Va. App. indicates that the case was decided by the Court of Appeals of Virginia, the state's intermediate appellate court.
See also: Landmark case