Talk:Lists of United States Supreme Court cases

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

text: I concur. --Coolcaesar 12:07, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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 — a common mistake among laypersons, especially those in unitary states.  American states are separate sovereigns — see the Law of the United States article.  --Coolcaesar 03:31, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Complete list of Supreme Court cases?

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

text: I concur. --Coolcaesar 12:07, 17 November 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Complete list 

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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 — a common mistake among laypersons, especially those in unitary states.  American states are separate sovereigns — see the Law of the United States article.  --Coolcaesar 03:31, 25 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of notable U.S. state supreme court cases 

message: 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)
thread_title: Wikifying key concepts

message: 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. — 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#Unpublished_decisions, 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 Wikipedia: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#Unpublished_decisions 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)
replies: text: 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#Unpublished_decisions. 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)
thread_title:  Intro text for 2000 decade cases 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Gonzales v. O Centro Espirita Beneficiente Uniao do Vegetal, No. 04-1084 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Sequence of Justices 

message: Case name                                                                   	Citation                                                                    	Summary
Cohens v. Virginia                                                          	                                                                            	judicial review of state supreme court decisions
Johnson v. McIntosh                                                         	                                                                            	inability of Native Americans to own land
Gibbons v. Ogden                                                            	                                                                            	Congressional power to regulate interstate commerce
Osborn v. Bank of the United States                                         	                                                                            	scope of Article III jurisdiction; interpretation of the U.S. Const. amend. XI
Ogden v. Saunders                                                           	                                                                            	state bankruptcy law
Willson v. Black-Bird Creek Marsh Co.                                       	                                                                            	Dormant Commerce Clause
Cherokee Nation v. Georgia                                                  	                                                                            	Indian nations as foreign states
Worcester v. Georgia                                                        	                                                                            	Indian removal
Barron v. Baltimore                                                         	                                                                            	reach of the Bill of Rights
Wheaton v. Peters                                                           	                                                                            	copyright perpetuity; common law copyright
Beginning of active duty of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, March 28, 1836	Beginning of active duty of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, March 28, 1836	Beginning of active duty of Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney, March 28, 1836
Charles River Bridge v. Warren Bridge                                       	                                                                            	Contract Clause of the  Constitution
Any thoughts? --MZMcBride 03:43, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)

text: 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)

text: 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)

text: Never mind. Linked without looking. Nice job.--Chaser T 05:59, 29 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: 1820–1839

message: 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)
thread_title:  I can't find BERTMAN v. J. A. KIRSCH CO anywhere 

message: 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)
thread_title:  "Cobweb" Article Found 

message: 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)
replies: text: List of influential SCOTUS cases? chrylis (talk) 20:21, 7 October 2008 (UTC)

text: 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 — 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)
replies: text: "Particularly notable"? Tisane talk/stalk  10:33, 18 July 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: Renaming

message: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
replies: text: 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)
thread_title: Possible Deletion

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

message: 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)
thread_title:  Recent decisions 

message: 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)
thread_title:  Inconsistencies 

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