Source: http://citeblog.access-to-law.com/?cat=36
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 15:46:28+00:00

Document:
Hat tip to Eva Resnicow, aka Editrix Lex, who brought this Bluebook change to my attention.
Although less clearly expressed, the twentieth edition has added comparable directions on when to omit internal quotation marks to The Bluebook proper. At the same time, it has removed the “(internal quotation marks omitted)” parenthetical from Rule 5.2’s roster. There is no ban on its use. The phrase has simply been deleted from 5.2, presumably, on the ground that it is unnecessary. Added to 5.2 is a new paragraph (f)(iii) which directs (as Bluebook editions reaching back as far as the fourteenth have advised) that a parenthetical identifying the source of the embedded quote be appended to the citation of the passage in which it appears. Arguably, that identification of underlying source provides adequate notice that the quotation is derivative. The revised rule is also as emphatic as the Blue Tip was before that interior quotation marks should be retained in any case where the embedded quote makes up less than the entirety of the primary quoted passage.
24. See id. at 4 (locating the President’s enforcement discretion in his constitutional duty to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed” (quoting U.S. Const. art. II, § 3) (internal quotation marks omitted)).
26. The Opinion, supra note 3, at 6 (quoting Chaney, 470 U.S. at 831) (internal quotation marks omitted).
28. Id. at 7 (alteration in original) (quoting Chaney, 470 U.S. at 833 n.4) (internal quotation marks omitted).
Some courts, including the nation’s highest, remove internal quotation marks under circumstances in which the new Rule 5.2 (and the prior Blue Tip) would require their retention. For example, in Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555 (1992) Justice Blackmun’s dissent cites a prior decision of the Court as follows:.
Cf. Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U. S. 95, 102 (1983) (“Past wrongs were evidence bearing on whether there is a real and immediate threat of repeated injury”) (internal quotation marks omitted).
A portion, but only a portion, of the parenthetical quote (“whether there is a real and immediate threat of repeated injury”) was drawn from a still earlier decision of the Court, O’Shea v. Littleton, 414 U. S. 488 (1974). Per The Bluebook, that quote within a quote should have been wrapped in single quotation marks. However, this is judicial writing, not a journal article. Judges may well consider it far less important to separate out exactly which language quoted from a past opinion of their own court was in turn recycled from a prior one. They are likely, however, The Bluebook notwithstanding, to continue to feel an obligation to note the occurrence of such reuse with an “internal quotation marks omitted” parenthetical.
For instance, in Posters `N’ Things, Ltd. v. United States, 511 U.S. 513 (1994), the Court addressed a conviction for selling drug paraphernalia under a statute forbidding anyone to “‘make use of the services of the Postal Service or other interstate conveyance as part of a scheme to sell drug paraphernalia,'” id., at 516 (quoting 21 U.S.C. § 857(a)(1) (1988 ed.)).
Since Thomas’s quotation from Posters ‘N’ Things consists entirely of language drawn from the U.S. Code, The Bluebook would omit the single quotation marks and rely on the “quoting” parenthetical to inform the reader of the ultimate source.
What Should Lawyers Do in Brief or Memorandum?
Negligible space is saved by trimming single quotation marks. Indeed, space is sacrificed and the word count increased if that trimming compels the author to add a four word parenthetical phrase. That suggests, at minimum, lawyers not be influenced by the judicial practice of occasionally removing internal quotation marks from quotes that rest within longer ones, no matter the ultimate source. Absolute clarity argues for including them even when The Bluebook considers them unnecessary. In no case should there be need for an “internal quotation marks omitted” parenthetical.
Most legal research in the U.S. is conducted using electronic source material, and for many types of cited works, primary and secondary, there are at least several possible sources. A pervasive issue is whether a citation ought specify the source relied upon by the author or whether instead a generic citation, adequate to retrieve the cited work from all widely used sources, will suffice. The latest edition of The Bluebook delivers inconsistent and, at times, confusing guidance on the point.
Consider a brief that cites a slew of cases, state and federal. If the author has retrieved them all from an online source (Westlaw, Fastcase, Google Scholar, an official court Web site) should her citations note that source? A fair reading of The Bluebook (20th ed.) yields the conclusion that they need not. Rule 10.8.1 authorizes, but does not require, citation to a specific database when “a case is unreported but available in a widely used electronic database.” There is no suggestion that a citation to a “reported” decision (i.e. reported in print), such as State v. McIver, 858 N.W.2d 699, 702 (Iowa 2015), need state that the author relied upon Google Scholar or Fastcase or acknowledge that despite the use of volume and page numbers, she did not review the text in the print reporter to which they correspond. Similarly, a citation to State v. Ortega, 2014-NMSC-017, ¶ 55 is apparently complete without a notation clarifying whether the writer relied upon the official digital version available from the New Mexico Compilation Commission site or the altered version offered by Westlaw. On this point The Bluebook‘s silence is in full accord with the citation practice of lawyers and judges. The twentieth edition, like the nineteenth, appears to accept generic case citations.
Generic citations to a constitution or statutory provision are a different matter. Rule 12.5(a) insists that when the writer’s source for a statutory code citation is an electronic database, the citation should include the name of the database, the publisher (unless a public office), and its currency. Rule 11 lays down the same requirement for citations to constitutions even though it doesn’t call for identification of source if it is printed. (Presumably, one can be working from the U.S. Constitution as printed in The World Almanac and Book of Facts without confessing it.) In contrast, rule 12.9.3 fully embraces citations to rules of evidence and procedure that leave off source, whether print or electronic. Consistency in approach is lacking; no clear rationale for the different requirements is evident.
17 U.S.C.A. § 301(a) (Westlaw through Pub. L. No. 114-49).
As will briefs submitted in the case.
The Bluebook‘s strong stance on the primacy of print when citing treatises was the subject of a prior post. Its position on law journal articles appears, at first, to be stated in similarly unequivocal terms. Rule 16.8 requires that when “citing periodical materials to a database” one include “a citation to the database”. But rule 18.2.1 (added with the nineteenth edition in 2010) provides that when an exact copy of a print source is available online it can be cited “as if to the original print source.” That, of course, is standard professional practice with law journal citations. Surely, such citations needn’t indicate whether the author retrieved the article in question from Lexis, Westlaw, HeinOnline or the journal’s own online archive.
The relationship between rule 18.2.1 and The Bluebook‘s various mandates to identify one’s actual source is unclear. In all likelihood this is a case where the specific (the mandate concerning statutes, for example) is intended to prevail over the more general rule. Both reflect the continuing grip of a print mindset, quite at odds with the world in which today’s lawyers and judges work. Rule 18.2.1. itself carries a heading that refers to “the original print source.” In truth the original source of nearly all print documents of the current era is electronic. Rule 18.2.1(a)(iii) and rule 18.2.2(f) express an attachment to electronic material that is held in pdf format because it “preserves the pagination and other attributes of the printed work.” Yet the information sources most heavily used by the legal professions, Westlaw, Lexis, Bloomberg Law, and the rest, scroll and hyperlink rather than page. What is critical is that the source be reliably accurate and that it contain the accepted units of citation for the cited work, whether page, section, or paragraph numbers, and not that it look and behave like print. Need it be an “exact copy” as rule 18.2.1 would seem to require? On its face that would rule out all the online services that enhance decisions and statutes with parallel citations and other editorial tampering. The Bluebook‘s level of unreality on these points can only be excused on the ground that it is prepared by students at four elite law schools and aimed primarily at the legal education market (list price $38.50). Ironically, the proprietors now offer “the full content of The Bluebook” online (on a subscription basis – $36 for one year, $46 for two) and as an Apple ios app ($39.99). Presumably, they intend these different formats to be viewed as interchangeable. Believing it safe to rely on the authors for consistency, I don’t feel obliged to report which I relied upon in preparing this post.

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