Talk:Lists of United States Supreme Court cases

For guidance on editing articles listed on this page see WikiProject US Supreme Court Cases.

Complete list
There is a document (PDF) at http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/datesofdecisions.pdf where they have listed all Supreme Court cases between 1791 and 1882. I do not have a sense, yet, of when it good to have a complete list of something on WP. I was thinking of making a "complete list" page that I would link to from this page.

Any reactions?


 * This is way too much information for Wikipedia. We need leading cases from the Supreme Court, significant cases or famous cases; we don't need every case listed here. There are 190 pages of cases listed there, and that is only the first 90 years of the Supreme Court when it was a relatively unhurried docket! I do not think this is a good idea at all; this material could make up its own encyclopedia; maybe someday when there is nothing else to do at Wikipedia in fifty years or so people may be proposing such activities, but now it would be better to go and create short case briefs on all the cases that are already listed on the page IMHO. Regarding just making a page linking to it, I don't think that is important either. I would just put the Supreme Court link somewhere; most people who know or go to that site know what is there. Alex756 22:00, 5 Sep 2003 (UTC)

I don't know, I think a complete list might be good, I know it would be quite a lot of work, but almost definitionally anything decided by the supreme court is significant and notable. Mark Richards 18:00, 30 Jul 2004 (UTC)


 * Why do we need a complete list? Isn't "Category:United_States_Supreme_Court_cases" good enough?  Jxn 01:05, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Perhaps this was too much information for the Wikipedia in 2003 but I doubt it is now. Not only are Supreme Court Cases highly important, they are well documented. Although the information is available from other websites, those websites do not allow Wikipedia's linking function, which is an extremely valuable tool for research. There are sites that incorporate this tool (Lexus-Nexus, and Westlaw) but they are generally expensive. In addition, those sites cannot hook into a general body of knowledge as well as the Wikipedia. I agree with Mark Richards. It will take a little time but not as much as you might think. And it would be worth it. If you wanted to keep a list of notable cases, why not expand the Landmark decision page? Otherwise, this information should be made readily available to everyone. Cdogsimmons 16 November 2005 (UTC)

I think there may be compelling reasons to have a complete list. However, allowing a separate article for each one is another matter entirely, and probably doesn't sound like too good an idea. Perhaps it would be better to put a complete list on wikisource, while leaving this list for those warranting articles. --PullUpYourSocks 02:46, 17 November 2005 (UTC)


 * I concur. --Coolcaesar 12:07, 17 November 2005 (UTC)

List of notable U.S. state supreme court cases
There is List of notable U.S. state supreme court cases, however, in my opinion it should be merged to this article. As Richards says, anything decided by the supreme court is definitionally significant and notable. Anyone opposed to merging in this article? --Barberio 01:38, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, seeing as how I just started that list... actually, I think a merge would ultimately be untenable because the State list has the potential to grow veeeery long (just as this list has). Every state has at least a few cases which were notable for that state - the current list merely tips up the iceberg. Also, state decisions are just qualitatively different. They deal with interpretations of state common law, state constitutions, often principles that just never reach the super-Supremes. -- BD2412 talk 01:53, 25 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree that these lists shouldn't be merged. In fact, down the road, it's possible that the list of state decisions would be further split, if some of the larger states had enough entries to justify a separate page. JamesMLane 03:14, 25 August 2005 (UTC)


 * I concur with JamesMLane's position. I suspect that Barberio may be confused about the difference between the U.S. Supreme Court and the 50 state supreme courts &mdash; a common mistake among laypersons, especially those in unitary states.  American states are separate sovereigns &mdash; see the Law of the United States article.  --Coolcaesar 03:31, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Wikifying key concepts
I like the idea of wikifying key concepts - I think it adds a lot to the page. I don't like bolding the cases - since they're the first thing on the line, they stand out easily already. --Raul654 20:36, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I'm ambivalent about the bolding, it's not in keeping with the manual of style, but since it's just this year's cases I guess I see the reasoning behind it. On the other hand it would have to be repaired every year. - Hephaestos 21:44, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I found that the cases didn't stand out enough for me when I didn't make them bold, so I decided to try that. For now I've left a mixture, so people can compare the bold and non-bold effects. If people like it, I'd make every case bold - if I did it for one year only, it was an accident. I'll wikify soem more of the key words, since that appears to be well accepted initially, and we'll see if there's agreement about bold for the cases or not. Jamesday 23:45, 23 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Citation style
The standard citation style seems to be VVV U.S. PPP (YYYY) (or similarly for pre-United States Reports reports of decisions) but here it is generally written VVV U.S. PPP YYYY. Would it be worth updating the entire page to use the standard citations? (For that matter, it would be a bit of an exercise to dig up proper citations for all of the cases here, but if they are truly important, then it should be easy to find them in on-line references.) 18.24.0.120 06:34, 22 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Please feel free to change any you notice to the normal citation style, as well as adding any citations you notice are missing. Jamesday 15:20, 24 Feb 2004 (UTC)



I know this is belated to the conversation, but I am currently updating every case (on the case's page) on the list to reflect a uniform citation of: Name v. Name, VVV U.S. PPP (YYYY). This is how citations read in Supreme Court dockets with the exception of the underlining of the case code. I will eventually update every case (on the list page) with the citations.

My plan would be to make the list format: Name v. Name, VVV U.S. PPP (YYYY)- followed by the appropriate subject the case concerns. I won't be updating the list page until I have finished properly citing every case page, so if anyone has any comments on my proposed format, please let me know. Skyler 17:04, Aug 31, 2004 (UTC)
 * I don't know yet whether I think underlining the reporter volume and page enhances readability, but it is not the proper format in legal writing, whether academic or in actual legal documents. I'm not sure what the general wikipedia policy on this is, but I don't think formal accuracy should ever be sacrificed, even for readability.  There are different citation formats within different state jurisdictions&mdash;some put the year before the reporter, etc.&mdash;but none that I am aware of underline the reporter, and federal courts, most states, and the Blue Book use Name v. Name, VVV U.S. PPP (YYYY) (though the case name may be underlined rather than italicized).  This is what we should use.  Postdlf 13:52, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * I might sacrifice some formal accuracy (if by that is meant something like Blue Book conformity) for readability in an extreme case, but this isn't such a case. There's no reason to depart from the standard format.  I agree with Postdlf's format except that I might not always wikilink the year -- I don't believe that wikilinking every mention of a year accomplishes anything.  Whether to link a particular year depends on the context in the article. JamesMLane 14:22, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * I agree. I just do it every now and then because others seem to like it, but I personally don't have much use for all the year links either.  Postdlf 14:45, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * I pretty much agree with JamesMLane and Postdlf here. I don't really see that the underlining does anything to enhance readability (in fact, I'd argue that underlining almost always detracts from readability). Linking years in a list is largely pointless, though the year should be linked in articles (at least the first occurence). older &ne; wiser 15:01, 9 Sep 2004 (UTC)


 * I am currently in the middle of a long project (check my contributions) to overhaul every case article on the list for uniformity. I am adding "The Bench" section to show who was on the bench and which way they voted to every article once I am done formatting the case citations on each case article and then on this list. I have been using my format proposed above with the underlined portion in response to the fact that contributors were adding case citations to the list and putting them in bold, which I thought made it less readable. I have gone through roughly half the case articles on the list and reformatted, but I would be happy to change them to format: Name v. Name, VVV U.S. PPP (YYYY) if I could get a consensus from the Wikipedians who commonly contribute to the supreme court case articles. I still think the year should be wikilinked as it is the common practice for many Wikipedians and it does not hurt anything. I will continue conversation on my projects (through the different waves) on this page and any feedback would be very much appreciated. I am trying to create uniformity, not ruffle feathers. Skyler 15:03, Sep 9, 2004 (UTC)


 * The most obvious way to create uniformity would be to follow the practice that's most common in the profession (and will therefore be most familiar to any lawyers contributing to the articles) and which is also the format used by the U.S. Supreme Court (and will therefore be most familiar to nonlawyers reading those decisions, which are the ones most likely to be written up or mentioned). We might vary from that standard format if there were a reason specific to Wikipedia to do so, but I haven't seen any such reason. JamesMLane 02:23, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)
 * I've already gone through all the citations I had formatted that way and changed them to common format, but thanks for the feedback. Skyler 14:01, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

Supreme Court case article improvement project
I would like to start some sort of group of like-minded Wikipedians who regularly contribute to these types of articles so that we could create uniformity among the articles and also significantly reduce the number of stubs and red links out there. I haven't figured out the best way of how to form such a group yet (or if anyone is even interested), but anyone who fits this profile and would like to help with this project, please feel free to add feedback and new ideas to this talk page for now. If I gather enough interest, I may have to move further discussion to a personal page, but we'll see how it goes. (P.S.- You don't need to be a legal or constitutional scholar to help with this. Those of you who read these articles and fix little things regularly are very much needed, too, because expanding the stubs will undoubtably cause of grammatical and wikifying errors. I know who you are, because I see your contributions often and they are much appreciated.) Thanks for your attention and interest. Skyler 14:06, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC)

I have formatted and checked the case citations for every case article up to and including Edwards v. California. Once I am done the rest of the list, I will be adding the case citations to the list itself. After that, I'll be attempting to add "The Bench" section to every article I can find the information for (see Branzburg v. Hayes for an example of that section). If any of my fellow Wikipedians who regularly contribute to the Supreme Court case articles have any comments, I would be very open to hearing them. Skyler 14:05, Sep 19, 2004 (UTC) Update: This project now has an official page and a couple of other contributors. The Supreme Court case articles should be changing more rapidly now. Any Wikipedian who would like to help with the project will be very much welcomed. Anyone who doesn't want to help, but takes an interest in these articles is also encouraged to check out the Project page and give their opinions and comments on how things are going on the discussion page. Skyler 20:47, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

Icch!! Why the underlining?
Is there are reason for underlining the short descriptions of the cases? It looks really bad, IMO. older ≠ wiser 19:47, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)


 * I agree. I also would not underline case names.  Underlining is correctly used instead of italics in material prepared on a typewriter that can't create italics.  Underlining is also sometimes used instead of italics by people who are used to seeing case names underlined; as word processing spreads, this style will die out.  Underlined italics for case names is a style that I can't remember ever seeing anywhere else. JamesMLane 19:53, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Wow. You guys are really quick. The case names must be underlined as they are Wikilinked and that's what most browser's do to links. Everything else is fair game. I underlined the type of case so that it would stand out from the rest. And by the way, anyone who comments on or watches this list may be interested in the Supreme Court Article Improvement Project, which actually has a real page and a few members besides me now. Check it out. Skyler 20:05, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)


 * You're quick yourself -- I realized that the underlining was a consequence of the wikilinking and came back here to correct myself, but I was too late. :(  JamesMLane 20:05, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)

How should case citations on the list be formatted?
I'm looking for the opinion of Wikipedians involved with this list on how the list should be formatted. I have gone through every article up to year 2000 on the list, so now I am formatted the list, itself. I am checking every citation and year to make sure they are correct and checking the way the name is listed against how it is listed on Lexis-Nexis to make sure the case names are listed as they are commonly known. However, there are three different ways to format the list.


 * 1) Name v. Name, VVV U.S. PPP (YYYY): type of case
 * 2) Name v. Name, VVV U.S. PPP (YYYY): type of case
 * 3) Name v. Name, VVV U.S. PPP (YYYY): type of case
 * 4) Name v. Name, VVV U.S. PPP (YYYY): type of case

As shown, the main points are whether to wikilink the years and whether to underline the type of case. Personally, I think # 4 looks the best. However, it has been said that the years should not be wikilinked for the list as they are in regular articles, so I would vote for # 2.

Opinions are needed as I am revamping the entire list. Please comment.

Skyler 19:56, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)


 * My preference is for # 1. Wikilinking the years seems to accomplish nothing.  Someone compiling a general timeline of events of 1954 who goes to 1954 and selects "What links here" will find Brown v. Board of Education listed.  Why would that person also need to find this list?  Why would a reader of this list be likely to want an easy way to go to 1954?  The 1954 article gives you some context for that decision, such as that Eisenhower was President, but no one would look for that kind of background before going to the Brown article itself.  Furthermore, to my eye a wikilinked year tends to blend in with the case name.  The case name will stand out better if the year is plain text.  As for the underlining, I find it distracting. JamesMLane 20:15, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * 1 for much the same reasoning as JML. older &ne; wiser 20:18, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)


 * So you would both agree that the 1820-1839 (and now the 1790-1819 section) looks good? For now, I am going to continue on with that format. I will be changing the entire list to this format, though, so if you have any comments about the way the list reads now (i.e. the bolded case citations), please let me know now as it will cost me less time later. Thanks! Skyler 20:41, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)


 * Yes, although I would not be surprised if someone comes along sooner or later and links all the years anyhow. older &ne; wiser 20:54, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)
 * I agree. JamesMLane 21:02, 11 Oct 2004 (UTC)
 * Well, that's what the Project is for. If someone comes along and does something and there is a consensus among regular contributors to these articles that what was done was not in the Project's best interests, it will be reversed. It's all about making it better and keeping it better with as much harmony in the community as possible. Skyler 21:55, Oct 11, 2004 (UTC)

After we worked out the formatting, User:Italo Svevo has edited the list to insert the template for the citations, which has the effect of making links out of the citation and the year. I think this decreases readability. The previous format gave the wikilink to the article on the case, which is where the link to the text should be. That would also be the appropriate place for any links to years. I think we should return the list to the format it's had for the last several months, the one adopted pursuant to the discussion above. JamesMLane 00:57, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I think the use of the template is a good idea, but perhaps the template could be edited so it didn't link the year. --Arcadian 03:52, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I've gone ahead and edited the template -- this may address your concerns. --Arcadian 04:05, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * What is the standard for uniquely identifying cases that don't have a volume/page number assigned yet? --Arcadian 12:45, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
 * I've partially reverted Arcadian's edits of the template. He had done more than just unlink the year: he unlinked the citation and shifted the citation to a footnote link before the citation. This was very awkward for the actual case articles, and pretty awkward for this page. I suggest that if we want to use the footnote format for this page, we should create a separate template. Mateo SA | talk 02:15, Mar 9, 2005 (UTC)


 * That would be an improvement, but why do we need to use any template on this page? I thought it was perfectly OK the way it was.  I prefer the format in which only the case name is a link.  That makes it clearest to the reader.  To answer Arcadian's question about cases with no official volume and page yet: The standard is to use the Supreme Court reporter if that citation is available; if it isn't, then the next choice would be the Lawyers' Edition citation; then finally the U.S. Law Week citation.  JamesMLane 07:00, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * What is the format for the Lawyers' Edition and U.S. Law Week citations and where do we find them? Thanks. Mateo SA | talk 05:22, Mar 10, 2005 (UTC)


 * Here are the rules that I remember for citations in the old-fashioned media (briefs, judicial decisions, and law review articles): The Lawyers' Edition format would be, for example, 79 L.Ed.2d 213 (1981). (I just made those numbers up.  I don't know whether a case really starts there or whether the volume number and the year match.  I haven't happened to use this source in a long time.)  It's printed by a private company, as is the Supreme Court Reporter.  Both of them issue paperback supplements to stay current, with bound volumes following later.  These paper editions would be available in law libraries.  They probably have an online version you can subscribe to.  U.S. Law Week is published as a looseleaf service so, back when I was doing federal research, it was usually more current than the Lawyers' Edition or the Supreme Court Reporter, which in turn were more current than the official reporter.  It also is available in paper in libraries or through online subscription .  Format would be 73 U.S.L.W. 1040 (2005) or maybe 73 USLW 1040 (2005); I'd have to look up whether you include the periods.  The bottom line is that these sources generally won't be very readily available.


 * As an online resource, though, we might as well use FindLaw when available. As an example, I see that FindLaw already has last week's decision in Roper, so it's pretty current.  If you're referring to Roper, and you happen to have the S. Ct., L.Ed.2d, or USLW citation, fine, include it, but if you don't, I'd go with: Roper v. Simmons, ___ U.S. ___ (Mar. 1, 2005) .  (As you see, I would carry over the "old-fashioned" rule that a citation that's not to a printed source should give the date of the decision.  In fact, the Bluebook format for citing USLW may also call for including the date; that's another point I don't remember.) JamesMLane 12:08, 10 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Intro text for 2000 decade cases
Arcadian added an introductory paragraph to the section 2000–present. The new paragraph stated that some of the cases in that list used alternative citations to the Supreme Court Reporter citation. However, none of items on that list actually use one of those citations. I therefore commented out that section until and unless some of the cases use the alternative citations. I also improved the formatting of that intro text (so that it would be improved if and when the commenting is removed). Arcadian reverted my changes, saying that I had deleted the intro text, and that I should improve it rather than delete it. Since I had improved the text, and had not deleted it, I reverted to my version. If Arcadian reverts again, I won't revert myself, but I think that, in that case, my updated version of the intro should be used. &mdash; Mateo SA | talk 16:26, Mar 26, 2005 (UTC)


 * I've got no interest in a revert war -- you've done a lot of great work on these pages, and I think our disagreement is minor and semantic. So let me take a step back here and state my larger goals, and I'll stay out of editing the page for the next few days or so. By the way, I am not a lawyer, so if I misuse any of the terms here, please forgive me.


 * According to my understanding of Case_citation, it recommends using the docket number for unpublished decisions. However, that's not what's being done on this page, and it seems like different people are using different approaches to the issue. It also looks like WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases doesn't seem to offer guidance here.


 * I'm morally neutral as to what the approach should be, but whatever the approach is, it should be documented somewhere easily visible to people adding new cases to the page. (I do understand that you didn't *delete* the explanation, you just commented it out, but I'm not sure that everybody who adds things to this page is going to read all the commented-out sections before doing so.)


 * Judging from the talk page, User:JamesMLane seems to have the most expertise of anyone who has chimed in on this, so I'd lean towards defering to his judgement until/unless we've got a good reason not to. If that's the direction we're going, then we should document that on the page, even if people aren't yet doing it. Or, if you don't believe his recommendation is what people should do, I'm okay with that as well, but in that case, please put your own recommendation somewhere on the page, so people know what they should do. Or maybe we could just add a link to Case_citation at the top of the section instead. In any case, I'll defer to your judgement, and I will refrain from editing the page until April at least. --Arcadian 17:52, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)


 * Okay, I've lived up to my end. :) I've stayed out of it until April. But it doesn't look like anybody else has chimed in. So, this is what I'm going to do for now -- I'll uncomment the paragraph at the top of the 2000 decade cases, and also include a link to Case_citation. I understand this will be confusing and contradictory for a while, but this problem has been here for months and I don't see any other way to resolve it, other than to be as transparent about it as possible. However, I'm still open to other perspectives. --Arcadian 16:51, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, No. 04-1084
I can't seem to find Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, No. 04-1084.

Is that my mistake, or is it not listed? I'm trying to find places to link Uniao do Vegetal from, as their currently before the court (AFAIK). Sam Spade 23:50, 22 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Page for most important cases?
This page now lists some 350 cases (a rough estimate). This has made the page rather unwieldy. Are these cases really all notable? Even if they are, I would suggest starting a new page containing only the most important ten or fifteen decisions. So, something similar to the page http://www.landmarkcases.org/ What do you think? --Rob 14:29, 27 October 2005 (UTC)
 * There are a lot of SCOTUS cases under Landmark decision - too many. I suggest that those cases be divided out into a separate article. Also, as to this page being unweildy, I suggest that it be split up by century as follows:
 * List of United States Supreme Court cases up to 1899
 * List of United States Supreme Court cases, 1900-1999
 * List of United States Supreme Court cases after 2000).
 * BD2412 T 15:20, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

See my comment on this here. NoSeptember 15:51, 14 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Note: Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases has led to a proposal to divide the cases by Court, as follows:
 * List of United States Supreme Court cases from the Jay Court through the Taft Court (or simply List of United States Supreme Court cases through the Taft Court)
 * List of United States Supreme Court cases from the Hughes Court through the Burger Court
 * List of United States Supreme Court cases from the Rehnquist Court to present
 * BD2412 T 01:05, 15 November 2005 (UTC)

Sequence of Justices
I've noticed that the terms of chief justices have been put into the list to distinguish the chronology and this has been been quite helpful to me. Any thoughts on whether it would benefit people if all of the justices included? Cdogsimmons 02:26, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

New look
I think that the current look of the three lists is odd. I'm proposing that the the lists be converted into a table format like the one below, so that it's easier to read and looks neater:

1820–1839
Any thoughts? --MZMcBride 03:43, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Definitely an improvement. I've always thought the current lists were a mess.  Though maybe make the column header color the same as the case infobox?  Postdlf 03:54, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * After a little finagling, I got the header color to change. Not sure what I think about it yet. --MZMcBride 05:15, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Looks great. I'd be happy to help convert if you want someone to do the grunt work.--Chaser T 06:48, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * That'd be great. I already started doing some of them, but any help would be greatly appreciated. --MZMcBride 15:28, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I did the reported cases from modern era one and will probably get to Hughes-Burger tonight. Any preference on the tables for unreported cases for the Roberts and Rehnquist courts?--Chaser T 19:40, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, in order to keep all of the info, I guess we'll go with a table like this: I think the cases that currently have something like 542 U.S. ___ should just remove that part until we have an official citation. For now, it's just easier I think to use the docket number instead of having some cases with 542 U.S. ___, some with 125 S.Ct. 34, and some with nothing at all. Although, it should be noted that many cases, including the one listed above do have an official citation that is on both the article page here and on the Supreme Court's page here. --MZMcBride 19:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Which date do I use for "decided"? There are two, unless the date with month and year is part of the docket number.--Chaser T 20:04, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
 * You got to the unreported decisions a lot faster than I did. In any case, I finished the lists of reported decisions, but the section for the insular cases looks a little silly. If you know any table wizardry to match your template wizardry, it might be helpful there.--Chaser T 05:58, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Never mind. Linked without looking. Nice job.--Chaser T 05:59, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

I can't find BERTMAN v. J. A. KIRSCH CO anywhere
Why is it nost listed? I checked in the warren court as it was in, and it's not there.

How do you guys MISS a SUPERME COURT case? I suggest you guys make sure you did not miss any more. 69.132.79.61 (talk) 19:20, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

"Cobweb" Article Found
The article "List of United States Supreme Court cases" (NOT "Lists...") is both outdated and redundant. 71.175.171.163 (talk) 22:44, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Merger?
Why don't we gather up all of the "list of cases" pages & make them easily readable with charts like this one. Basically, merge everything onto this well-laid-out (for a layperson) page.

Renaming
I'm open to renaming on this. SCOTUS cases with articles seemed too self-referential, but notable is an unfortunately loaded word around Wikipedia that would be good to avoid. Suggestions?--Chaser - T 16:10, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
 * List of influential SCOTUS cases? chrylis (talk) 20:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)
 * Agree, "notable" should definitely not be in the title of the article. By Wikipedia standards, every SCOTUS case is notable.  Maybe it should be relative to other cases, like the 10% most influential cases &mdash; but there's probably not an easy way to scan all the court cases in the US and numerically determine which SCOTUS cases have been referenced the most.  Also there are probably some landmark important cases that have not been referenced much, so such an automated solution, though really interesting to me, probably wouldn't suit.  Tempshill (talk) 16:53, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
 * "Particularly notable"?  Tisane  talk/stalk 10:33, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

Possible Deletion
I think this list/page is redundant - and should be considered for deletion. Not only is there the problem with the name of the page, there are several other pages that have better information. 1) Lists of United States Supreme Court cases by volume 2) 2007 term opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States and related pages. These are more thorough and more accessible.--Enos733 (talk) 20:38, 22 December 2010 (UTC)
 * I have to agree with you, although my heart cries out to all those editors who spent so many hours working on this page. -Ashershow1talk 23:06, 11 January 2011 (UTC)'


 * I think it should say, but it should be made clear that these are cases of particular signficance. In such a broad and diverse field, I think it's fair to have specialized lists that provides a sorted outlook. Perhaps we could agree on some criteria for inclusion, instead of removing it altogether? Shoplifter (talk) 15:35, 28 January 2011 (UTC)


 * I vote for this page to stay. For the lay reader (like myself) it provides a quick summary of the ruling along w the name and date of the case, all in one page view.  You don't have to click through a bunch of files to see what's what.Jasonnewyork (talk) 19:01, 31 August 2012 (UTC)

interwiki links
Can someone fix this? Or it can't be fixed because of the structure...? -- t OMG  18:20, 13 August 2012 (UTC)

Recent decisions
This may have already been discussed elsewhere, but why are there no decisions from the October 2013 (current) term of the Supreme Court on this list? Thanks. Cody.berdinis (talk) 08:46, 29 May 2014 (UTC)

Inconsistencies
First: the “Summary” column inconsistently summarizes the case either as the decision made by the Court (“foos have the right to quux”) or as the question considered by the Court (“do foos have the right to quux?”). The former, used in most of the detail pages, is clearly much more useful as it provides information about the final disposition without detracting anything. If the answer is “foos have the right to quux” or “foos do not have the right to quux”, then the question must have been “do foos have the right to quux?”. The question form needlessly obscures the result like some kind of clickbait.

Second: many, but not all, of the entries in the summary column inexplicably begin without the benefit of a capital letter, contrary to the usual convention in the English language.

EmmetCaulfield (talk) 00:04, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Additionally, the cases do not appear to necessarily be cited correctly, e.g. 2 U.S. 401 is Oswald v. State of New York, not West v. Barnes as the table indicates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.184.255.141 (talk) 05:56, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

OUTDATED by a Year
Last updated 1/15/2015, over a year ago. 71.175.171.163 (talk) 22:39, 13 February 2016 (UTC)