Supreme Court Opinions in the United States

Public Understanding of Supreme Court Opinions

United States Constitution

According to the Encyclopedia of the American Constitution, when interpreting the Constitution, Justices of the Supreme Court-whether writing a majority, concurring, or dissenting opinion-should seek to reach the American people as their primary audience. They should explain with candor, in accessible way, their opinions.

Legal Materials

Note: Supreme Court legal materials are covered here.
Case Reporters: U.S. Supreme Court opinions are published officially by the Government Printing Office in United States Reports, starting with Volume 91 (1875). The earlier official volumes are named for the Reporter of Decisions at the time. They are: Dallas, volumes 1-4 (1789-1800); Cranch, volumes 5-13 (1801-1815); Wheaton, volumes 14-25 (1816-1827); Peters, volumes 26-41 (1828-1842); Howard, volumes 42-65 (1843-1860); Black, volumes 66-67 (1861-1862); and Wallace, volumes 68-90 (1863-1874). United States Reports is available in .PDF format from the Court Web sitefrom Volume 502 (1991) to about five years back. You can get copies of older U.S. Reports volumes from academic law libraries and from Hein Online.

In addition, opinions are published unofficially in West’s Supreme Court Reporter(back to 1882), Lawyer’s Edition (back to 1790) and United States Law Week (back to 1933). At least one of these sets is available in most law libraries.

Free Online Resources: In addition to the United States Reports sources mentioned above, Supreme Court opinions are posted free on Google Scholar, BulkResource.org, LexisNexis Communities, FindLaw, and the Supreme Court web site. BulkResearch.org goes back to 1754, volume 1 of U.S. Reports. FindLaw goes back to 1893 (volume 150 of U.S. Reports) and provides star pagination. Google Scholar goes back to 1754, has star pagination and allows for more sophisticated searching. The Court’s Web site has the best-looking printouts and the most recent slip opinions.

Fee-Based Services: For better searching and generally nicer print-outs, Supreme Court opinions are available on Lexis (GENFED;US) and Westlaw (SCT for cases decided back to 1945; SCT-OLD for cases decided from 1790 to 1944) within an hour of their release. Subscribers can get Supreme Court opinions from Bloomberg Law,Versuslaw, Fastcase and Loislaw.

REVISED OPINIONS: The Supreme Court sometimes changes the text of an opinion after it is issued, sometimes without even telling the public. Sometimes they do this right after the opinion is issued, sometimes they do it years later. Really. If you find out about the change, or if you are suspicious, you can compare the slip opinion (e.g., in print or in the HeinOnline collection of United States Slip Opinions) to the official text in a commercial database (e.g., Lexis, Westlaw, Bloomberg Law, as discussed above).