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Government 2305: Judicial Branch | Courts/Legal

US Government

Research Tools for the Judiciary

  • US Supreme Court (FindLaw)
    Court docket section allows users to browse cases by topic or month. Site also includes justice biographies, rules of the Court, briefs (most recent five years), headlines and other news, and decisions, also most recent five years.
  • Legal Information Institute
    Allows users to search for recent decisions by keyword, docket number, year, words in case name. Archives decisions back to 1990, also groups them by subject. Includes the Wex, a collaboratively built, freely available legal dictionary and encyclopedia.
  • United States Supreme Court Reports, Lawyers' Edition(print source)
    Cases argued and decided in the Supreme Court of the United States. Includes annotations, summaries of counsel briefs, additional indexing and pocket parts, all of which are not included in the official version below. 1790 - present
  • Supreme Court Database
    Lessons on how to analyze cases as well as case data, 1953-2008.

Legal | Court Information

 Supreme Court and U.S. Federal Courts

The Supreme Court examines the meaning of laws, how they are applied, and whether they challenge the Constitution. Once the Supreme Court makes a decision, it can only be changed by another Supreme Court decision or by amending (changing) the Constitution. 
  • Supreme Court Historical Society Historical and background information on the Supreme Court and Justices. Includes the current court, previous court locations, sample cases, selected digitized collections.   See also The History of the Supreme Court.
  • Supreme Court of the United States Includes information about the supreme court, the constitution, biographies of current justices, list of all justices who have ever served (including who appointed them, their home state, etc).
  • Federal Judicial Center The education and research agency for the U.S. federal courts.  Features federal judiciary history, educational programs and materials, class action notices, etc.
  • U.S. Courts The home page of the U.S. federal judiciary.  Provides information on and links to all U.S. federal courts.