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Chapter Four: Case Law and Judicial Opinions Chapter Theme Chapter Four introduces students to case law. Students will learn that not all cases are published and that the cases that are published share certain features. You may wish to show how these elements appear in the case reports by showing an old advance sheet to the students or by reviewing the case reproduced in Chapter Four of the text. Reviewing actual published cases is especially helpful to show how to locate pertinent portions of cases using headnotes. Students often have a bit of difficulty understanding the designation of cases as “official” and “unofficial,” and explaining this may require a comparison of a case in an official set with its publication by West in a regional reporter. After the publication of state cases is discussed and students are familiar with the framework and units of West’s National Reporter System, the publication of federal cases is discussed. Star paging is explained so students will know how to convert citations and page references in Supreme Court Reporter and Lawyers’ Edition to citations to the United States Reports, to comply with Bluebook citation rules. Note: This is also helpful because star paging is used on Lexis Advance) and Westlaw screens to show readers when page TESTBANKSELLER.COM breaks occur. Students are introduced to the features included in West’s sets of books so they may readily use the Table of Cases or list of judges covered by the courts in that volume. Finally, once students are thoroughly familiar with how and where cases are published and the elements of reported decisions, case briefing is explained.
Classroom Discussion Approach Ask students why or when a dissent or concurring opinion may be issued. You may consider discussing the current trend of U.S. Supreme Court justices to issue more concurring opinions than in previous years and ask what reasons students can think of why this has occurred. The “fractured” nature of the United States Supreme Court opinion in 2000 in Bush v. Gore may provide a good “jumping off” point for this discussion. Similarly, the 2013 U.S. Supreme Court case interpreting the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and holding Section 4 of the Act unconstitutional, Shelby County v. Holder, available at http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-96_6k47.pdf, is useful for showing the numerous “alignments” on the Court. The blog SCOTUSblog (http://www.scotusblog.com) has useful statistics on Supreme Court alignments, dissents, and concurrences. Select “Statistics” or “Stat Pack.”
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