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Article needed for In re Primus, 436 U.S. 412 (1978)

Hi. I'm working on the ACLU article (trying to get it to GA status), and the sources mention an important case from 1978: In re Primus. It is listed in List of United States Supreme Court cases, volume 436, but there is no article for it yet. The sources indicate it is pretty darn important (public interest attorneys may be exempt from anti-solicitation rules), so I was wondering of some SCOTUS black belt could craft an article for it? Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 02:04, 6 January 2012 (UTC)

article needed: Patterson v. Alabama (294 U.S. 600)

ACLU says that Patterson v. Alabama (294 U.S. 600), 1935, is one of their 100 most important cases. I'm unable to locate it in WP ... new article? --Noleander (talk) 20:07, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

See Scottsboro Boys; the ruling in Patterson v. Alabama is described briefly in a subsection without the decision being named. postdlf (talk) 20:26, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. Here are some other notable SCOTUS cases for which I cannot find WP articles. These are all listed in NH ACLU web site as big cases, so they are non-trivial. See [1]:

Apologies if some are not SCOTUS. --Noleander (talk) 20:51, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Those interesting in writing articles about SCOTUS cases may find some redlinks of interest in the references of United States constitutional criminal procedure. Savidan 04:40, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Wong Kim Ark 2nd FAC (restarted)

Hi. The Featured Article candidacy (FAC) process for United States v. Wong Kim Ark has been give a "restart for a fresh look". Some major questions have arisen regarding what sources to use, how to use them, how to make sure the article is comprehensive and doesn't display any biases or miss any noteworthy points, etc., etc. In particular, there has been a dispute between one reviewer who insists the article should be essentially based upon recent law review articles about the Wong Kim Ark case by professors without an axe to grind (and/or recent court decisions that delve into the legal history rather than just cite Wong Kim Ark in passing) — and another reviewer who insists on voluminous detail from primary sources (court decisions and congressional debates), with everything mentioned in the article (presumably so as to avoid any possibility of missing something important). We really, really need more input on the issues in order to come up with a credible consensus one way or the other. And since whichever way the Wong Kim Ark article goes is likely to guide the path other SCOTUS articles will need to follow in future if they are to have any hope of becoming Featured Articles, I believe it's very important for us here to get involved — regardless of whether you believe this article is FA material or not. You can find the Featured Article candidacy discussion here — and please note the earlier comments (before the "restart") here. Thanks. — Richwales 18:09, 20 January 2012 (UTC)

Wong Kim Ark is now a Featured Article (see here for promotion info). — Richwales 17:07, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

How remove from "Flagged U.S. Supreme Court articles" category?

There are a few dozen articles, such as Nixon v. General Services Administration, which are in the Category:Flagged U.S. Supreme Court articles category for "immediate attention". A few of these articles may be okay now, so can be removed from that category ... what is the process for removal? It does not appear to be using the normal categorization system. --Noleander (talk) 01:00, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Apparently, by fixing the errors in the infobox. I have no idea which errors, though; I just fixed them all at once. (And this article needs to be properly categorized in any case.) 121a0012 (talk) 05:27, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Looking at the source code for the template, it appears to use that category when some of the required date parameters are missing from the infobox invocation. It would be nice if it also emitted some text to explain what was wrong (like some other templates do). 121a0012 (talk) 05:33, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Ah, thanks for the clue. The Template:Infobox SCOTUS case InfoBox Talk page does indeed say that if the dates are formatted wrong, it will add the article to the Flag category. But I'm looking at the dates in the offending InfoBoxes, and they look okay to me. I found a couple of editors that worked on the template, and I posted a query on their Talk pages (referring to this Talk page section) so they can come here and give us some ideas. --Noleander (talk) 05:49, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Looking at the template code, I think the category gets added if one or both of the following conditions are true:
    1. {{{SCOTUS}}} is blank or missing AND
    2. {{{Outcome}}} is blank or missing
OR
    1. {{{USVol}}} is not equal to 1 AND
    2. any of the following parameters fail the test below: {{{SubmitDate}}}, {{{SubmitYear}}}, {{{ArgueDate}}}, {{{ArgueYear}}}, {{{ArgueDateA}}}, {{{ReargueDate}}}, {{{ReargueYear}}}, {{{ReargueDateA}}}, {{{ReargueDate2}}}, {{{ReargueYear2}}}, {{{ReargueDateA2}}}, {{{DecideDate}}}, {{{DecideYear}}}.
      A parameter in the above list fails the test if it is non-blank AND does not match the title of an existing Wikipedia article (this is a quick-and-dirty test of whether the date is in a common format, as there are article titles for years and each day of the year).
In all flagged cases, if {{{category}}} is supplied, then its contents are inserted instead of "[[Category:Flagged U.S. Supreme Court articles]]". So, for example, an alternative category could be specified; or, if {{{category}}} were specified as blank, the tests would have no effect and the invalid parameters would not be flagged at all (not recommended).
The {{{Outcome}}} and {{{category}}} parameters seem to be undocumented, so the first test in effect flags the absence of {{{SCOTUS}}}.
Hope that clarifies, or at least agrees with your own understanding!
— Richardguk (talk) 13:10, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Great! thanks for the info. I'll add that the the template Talk page, for future reference. --Noleander (talk) 14:56, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Richard: could you pinpoint the issue with this ariticle's infobox: Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen. Its infobox includes: 

 SCOTUSCase
 |Litigants=Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen
 |ArgueDate=February 28
 |ArgueYear=1916
 |ReargueDate=January 31 and February 1
 |ReargueYear=1917
 |DecideDate=May 21
 |DecideYear=1917
 |FullName=Southern Pacific Company, Plff. in Err., v. Marie Jensen
 |USVol=244
 |USPage=205
 |Citation=37 S. Ct. 524; 61 L. Ed. 1086
 |Prior=Error to the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Third Judicial Department, of the State of New York
 |Subsequent=
 |Holding=State legislation affecting maritime commerce is invalid if [***]
 |SCOTUS=1916-1921
  ... more clipped off ...

I'm not seeing where it is violating a rule. --Noleander (talk) 15:03, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Could the problem be in a compound date like "January 31 and February 1"? Clearly there is no WP article with that name: January 31 and February 1. --Noleander (talk) 15:05, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Another offending article has the date string January 11-12; another's is February 11-12. Richard: I think that many SCOTUS cases are argued over two days. Can you disable the check for the following parameters?
  • ArgueDate
  • ReargueDate
I think all the other date strings should be a single day, but those two bulleted params are often two days. Thanks. --Noleander (talk) 15:07, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Richard: I went ahead and made that change to the template, here, so no action required on your part. Thanks for the help. --Noleander (talk) 15:19, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I've reverted your change to the template code. I wrote it a long time ago and it's worked fairly well. In the cases you all are seeing, it's user error. January 31 and February 1 are sequential. It'd be "January 31–February 1", not "January 31 and February 1". January 11 and January 12 are similarly sequential. If you're dealing with non-sequential days, the template also supports that. The code is a bit esoteric, but have a little faith that it's smart code. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 19:53, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

I fixed Southern Pacific Co. v. Jensen in this edit. Richardguk: Thanks for your work deciphering the code. Your comments look spot-on. There may be one or two other edge cases where an article is flagged, but I think you got the biggest cases and you understood the logic behind the code. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:57, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

MZMcBride: You sound a little defensive about the template. Did you write it? There are about 100 articles "flagged" for "immediate attention" in that Category, and yet the Info Boxes all look just fine to me. As a practical matter, no one is going to go through 100 articles and change the date formats. The template should not be so sensitive about date formatting. Ascribing it to user error is not a good response: fixing the template is. Would you consider updating the template to be more flexible about date formats? --Noleander (talk) 20:26, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
Responding to the above:
  • Date ranges are intended to be created by using ArgueDateA and ArgueDateB (or equivalents for reargue dates) to pass the start date and end day separately; the documentation includes links to example usage.
  • Editing 100 articles to fix infobox parameters is not necessarily very time consuming; we all have different interests and priorities as editors, balancing quantity and quality, so horses for courses. But the category flagging does not seem to adversely affect article readability, so is harmless in itself. I'd therefore suggest avoiding renaming or deleting the category unless there is a consensus that no checks at all are appropriate.
  • As to whether the template is too complicated and constricting (or not complicated and constricting enough): that is an editorial and technical balance. I don't know much about this particular template and its associated articles, but from the above discussion it's not clear to me that the current checks are causing significant problems, given that the flag category does not stop the infobox from displaying readably. Some templates take an alternative approach when flagging errors, by displaying a very obvious error message in the relevant article, which makes editors more likely to notice and try to fix the error, but is disconcerting for readers while the error remains unfixed. So the current approach of using an almost-invisible flagging category is not necessarily heavy-handed and is only a problem if, in practice, editors are discouraged from using the template by its complexity.
  • The undocumented {{{Outcome}}} parameter seems to have been added by MZ in April 2007. I won't pretend to understand its purpose!
— Richardguk (talk) 23:17, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
I hear what you are saying, but the bottom line is that the editors/readers are the customer, and the template writers are providing a service. The date formats giving rise to these "flag" errors are reasonably formatted. Blaming the editors for not reading the template Doc page is not a constructive thing to do. The impact to WP of these date-format limitations is that now we have nearly 200 articles who are in a "Flagged" category ... it appears at the bottom of every one of those nearly 200 articles. We should be more receptive about improving the template logic, not defensive. --Noleander (talk) 23:55, 22 January 2012 (UTC)
I agree that maintenance categories should not normally be visible. I've edited the wikitext at Category:Flagged U.S. Supreme Court articles to make it a hidden category, invisible to article readers unless they are logged in and have altered the relevant user preference. — Richardguk (talk) 00:22, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I'm defensive or just wary of changes to the (working) logic. If there's a demonstrated problem, feel free to fix. But as far as I see, the logic is sound.

The Flagged category is unique to this WikiProject, I think. Or was when I created it. Articles with bad infoboxes (where the year is repeated, there's info missing, fields are incorrectly filled out, etc.) tend to accompany articles where general improvement is needed as well. High correlation. Don't read "flagged" as anything more than follow-up. No deadline, and all that. :-) And the category is a hidden category, I think?

The Outcome parameter was for older cases of some kind, as I recall. It's been a while. There's probably something about it in the talk page archives of this talk page or the template's talk page (or maybe my talk page archives, but probably not). --MZMcBride (talk) 01:12, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

P.S. If you've got questions about any particular article, feel free to ask here or on my talk page. Nixon v. General Services Administration was in the flagged category as it read "Argued April, 20 1977, 1977" and "June 28 1977, 1977".

Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Fellows v. Blacksmith/archive1

I have nominated Fellows v. Blacksmith to be featured. Please feel free to comment. Savidan 20:33, 22 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for the note. I see a few people have commented over there already. Good luck with the process. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 01:24, 23 January 2012 (UTC)

Renominated. Savidan 23:54, 2 March 2012 (UTC)

Arizona v. California

Hi. Looking at the current version of Arizona v. California, it's pretty clear that something needs to be done. I think there are two options:

  1. turn "Arizona v. California" into a disambiguation page and split off the individual cases into individual articles
  2. turn "Arizona v. California" into a proper index page, with subsections for each individual case and separate infoboxes in each section

Any thoughts on this? --MZMcBride (talk) 19:41, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

It looks like there aren't separate cases, but rather multiple opinions in the same case. Some of the cited decisions may even just be decrees. I don't think we have a good example of a well developed article about an original jurisdiction lawsuit like this, do we? postdlf (talk) 19:47, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
Sorry, I was using "case" kind of loosely there. I mean splitting by decision, which is how we split most articles already. It'd be nine separate articles, it looks like. They're all interconnected, obviously, and would be linked via an index/disambiguation page and "see also" sections, but the current mess of a page (including that infobox!) really serves no one, I think.
Not sure about good examples of original jurisdiction lawsuits. They're rare, so the odds of having an article about one and having it be decent are small.... :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 19:59, 1 February 2012 (UTC)
As the separate opinions link up to form a single narrative, I think there should be one article about the litigation as a whole, with an overview and summary of all the decisions (maybe with each under a separate header), with {{main}} links to any separate articles on opinions (maybe all are merited, maybe some, depends on the opinion's substance) just as we would in any non-case law article with split-off subtopics. postdlf (talk) 21:41, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Roe v. Wade

I ended up working on Roe v. Wade a month or two back, for reasons that I am not clear about (I generally do my best to avoid these kinds of controversial articles, but thankfully, the page has been pretty calm since). This is what it looked like in mid-December; this is what it looks like now. It has improved a bit, but I'm not sure by how much. The "Controversy" section isn't that great, and the sourcing is not really what I would expect for a featured article. I'm not really that well-informed about how either this project or the FA project works. Should this a candidate for WP:FARC? NW (Talk) 04:49, 5 February 2012 (UTC)

Any on-wiki thoughts? I was chatting to another contributor off-wiki the other day, and he suggested that I take the article to FARC. I'm inclined to do so, unless anyone has an objection. NW (Talk) 05:36, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
Good idea, I can agree with bringing it to FARC. There is a need to discuss the standards for a Supreme Court FA, and this is probably the vehicle to do so. As an editor in this area, I need Roe v. Wade to be of top quality as I use it as a basis for improving my own work. Thanks NW for working on this! :) Lord Roem (talk) 13:47, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

I have nominated Roe v. Wade for a featured article review here. Please join the discussion on whether this article meets featured article criteria. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. If substantial concerns are not addressed during the review period, the article will be moved to the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Delist" the article's featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. NW (Talk) 16:26, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Template:Sixth Amendment

I have created Template:Sixth Amendment, modeled after the first amendment template. I hope it will inspire more article creation in this area. Savidan 06:48, 15 February 2012 (UTC)

You know, I may just take you up on that :) Great template! Lord Roem (talk) 17:49, 15 February 2012 (UTC)
I like it. Good work.--Chaser (talk) 16:49, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

Kiobel

The Court has just gone to the extremely unusual step of ordering reargument in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum, the Alien Tort Statute case argued just last week. This would be a really good and timely subject for an article; the coverage in the ATS article is somewhat cursory, although it has good references. 121a0012 (talk) 02:13, 6 March 2012 (UTC)

I recently created Category:Alien Tort Statute case law and was surprised to find nothing on this. Savidan 19:15, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Fisher v. University of Texas

Would anyone here be willing to take a look at Fisher v. University of Texas? I'd like to be sure that the formatting, categorization and linking are done correctly. Thanks, Gobōnobo + c 19:08, 8 March 2012 (UTC)

Proposed Collaboration: Marshall Court

I've created a barebones outline here. Eventually I'd like to see an article here similar to (but with the potential to be better than) Warren Court. Much on-wiki content can be found in the relevant sections of John Marshall and History of the Supreme Court of the United States (and perhaps elsewhere). While I do not propose a copy-and-paste job, I think those respective sections could be shorted once this article was filled out. There are ample sources available on a Google Scholar search for "Marshall Court". Anyone interested? Savidan 17:46, 10 March 2012 (UTC)

Savidan, I'd be glad to help out! I'm right now working on getting the Compulsory Process Clause cases (total of four articles) to GA status, with the goal of an eventual Good Topic. After that's done, I would love to expand this. -- Lord Roem (talk) 19:04, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia is missing articles for seven of the eight important Supreme Court cases regarding federal prosecution of political corruption. Savidan 22:23, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I think I've made a pretty comprehensive list of corrupt governors, mayors, and state legislators here. If I've missed any that you know of, please fill in. Savidan 18:12, 9 April 2012 (UTC)

Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida

Hi. There's a merge discussion going on at Talk:Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida#Merge that participants of this WikiProject may be interested in. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:53, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Great can't-miss DYK possibility on new case

If someone wants to create the article. It would look something like this:

... that, in Caraco Pharmaceutical Laboratories, Ltd. v. Novo Nordisk A/S, U.S. Supreme Court justice Elena Kagan criticized the New York Mets for having no hitting?

(See here] and here). Daniel Case (talk) 18:52, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Overhaul of project page

Hi. I overhauled the project page, mostly moving content to a bunch of subpages. Editors may wish to watchlist these subpages for changes:

I hope nobody hates my changes too much. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:21, 20 May 2012 (UTC)

Should each of those subpages also have their own talk pages? Right now they all link back to the main page's talk. Or is that by design? Groll†ech (talk) 11:04, 29 May 2012 (UTC)
I redirected most of the talk pages back to this page. I think it makes sense to keep discussion centralized (for now, at least). --MZMcBride (talk) 18:59, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

Afroyim v. Rusk peer review requested

Hi. I've requested a peer review for the Afroyim v. Rusk article. Anyone who is up to the challenge, please go here to find the review page. Thanks. — Richwales 17:34, 22 May 2012 (UTC)

Peer review requested

I have requested a peer review of Menominee Tribe v. United States, the page to review it is here. Any help would be appreciated. GregJackP Boomer! 03:00, 25 May 2012 (UTC)

Comments on dispute requested at Template talk:Criminal due process

While the dispute concerns WP:REDNOT, input from members of this project may be particularly helpful with regard to some issues that have been raised, such as the likelihood of creation of these articles and the subjectiveness of the listed cases. Savidan 00:01, 20 June 2012 (UTC)

The template in question has been nominated for deletion here: Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion#Template:Criminal_due_process. Savidan 20:00, 22 June 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for the pointer. I just voted over there. I have no idea why people are objecting to red links... red links are a Good Thing. Bizarre.
I do agree that the template name could probably stand to be changed to make it clear that this template applies to U.S. Supreme Court cases. That's outside the scope of the deletion discussion, though. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:22, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Definitions in Template:SCOTUStablekey

I was looking at 2011 term opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States and I started wondering about the difference between red and purple. Template:SCOTUStablekey says red is "dissent" and purple is "concurrence/dissent" but what do these mean? Why do some cases have two dissents and some cases a concurrence/dissent without a dissent? The template should link me to a place where these terms are defined.  Randall Bart   Talk  16:30, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Dissent means the writing justice favors the opposite disposition favored by the majority (e.g. "defendant wins" instead of "plaintiff wins"). Concurrence means the writing justice favors the same disposition as the majority, but for different reasons. A concurrence/dissent occurs in a case with multiple issues. For example, if the majority reverses the convictions of two criminal defendants, but the writing justice would reverse only one of their convictions, that would be a concurrence/dissent. There can be two dissents because their authors each wish to express their own reasons for dissenting, whether they differ or not. As you can see, given the functional definitions of "dissent" and "concurrence/dissent," there is no reason that there has to be a "dissent" for there to be a "concurrence/dissent." Would that there were a place where these terms were defined, but I do not know of one. Savidan 17:00, 25 June 2012 (UTC)
Our labeling of the opinions just follows how the justices themselves label them, and otherwise the meaning of "concurring" and "dissenting" is plain, and there is occasion for a justice to do the same within each case as Savidan has explained when there are multiple issues or a multifaceted outcome (see today's decision in Arizona v. United States). In substance, it may be difficult to see in some opinions why a justice hasn't just labeled their opinion a dissent rather than "an opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part," because the concurrence may be slight by comparison to the points of dissent. And if you really want your mind blown regarding the potential vagaries and varieties of multiple opinions within a case, check out McConnell v. Federal Election Commission or United States v. Booker. Their table listings respectively here and here really illustrates the fragmentation well, one of the main reasons I developed these color-coded case tables.

In any event, the tables are just abstract indexes of what was filed and who joined what. To really understand why there are multiple opinions in a case or why they are designated the way they are, defining the labels of how those opinions are designated just gives a very superficial (and obvious) answer, and you will need to read either our article on that particular case or the original opinions themselves for that particular case. postdlf (talk) 22:10, 25 June 2012 (UTC)

Fellows v. Blacksmith peer review

After two under-attended FACs, I have opted for a peer review first. As always, input from members of this project would be appreciated here: Wikipedia:Peer review/Fellows v. Blacksmith/archive1. Savidan 03:18, 27 June 2012 (UTC)

Peer review requested for Ex parte Crow Dog

A peer review has been requested for Ex parte Crow Dog here. Any help on getting the article ready for a FAC review would be appreciated. GregJackP Boomer! 04:05, 30 June 2012 (UTC)

Request for reassessment, Zadvydas v. Davis

Can someone look at Zadvydas v. Davis and reassess it? I just did a major expansion on the article. Thanks, GregJackP Boomer! 13:53, 30 July 2012 (UTC)

Ex parte Crow Dog FAC

Ex parte Crow Dog is undergoing a WP:FAC review, any comments would be welcome here. GregJackP Boomer! 19:22, 3 August 2012 (UTC)

Combining cases

I've traditionally been an advocate of the "one case, one article," principle, but I've done something a bit different at Burton v. United States, and would invite some feedback on whether that works. Savidan 23:56, 14 August 2012 (UTC)

Normally I would agree, but in this instance it works well. GregJackP Boomer! 00:28, 15 August 2012 (UTC)

Joint Tribal Council of the Passamaquoddy Tribe v. Morton FAC

I've nominated Joint Tribal Council of the Passamaquoddy Tribe v. Morton for Featured Article. It's about a land claim by two tribes for the majority of the land in Maine. While this is a First Circuit case, not a Supreme Court case, I think members of this project may have views about how to write articles about lower court cases too. Comments from participants in this project would be welcome here. Savidan 20:00, 16 August 2012 (UTC)

Currently pending cases

Does anyone know of a good list of currently pending important cases? Or have they not yet announced what cases they'll be hearing for the October 2012 term? I'm looking to update Portal:Government of the United States/Cases, so landmark cases currently in the federal appellate courts would work too. Cheers.--Chaser (talk) 23:46, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi Chaser! I don't think there's such a list on-wiki, but this is a comprehensive list of cases the Supreme Court will consider in the next term. Best, Lord Roem (talk) 00:30, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm currently working on one such case (well, two actually) – I'm referring to the "dog sniff" cases that are about to be heard by the Supreme Court: Florida v. Jardines and Florida v. Harris. I'm almost ready to unleash Jardines (sorry, couldn't pass up the pun) – it is now live, currently in my user space at Florida v. Jardines, and I'd welcome any input or updates... Grollτech (talk) 19:33, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Freedom of speech = New WikiProject

Hi there, I'm notifying this WikiProject due to its relevance to Freedom of speech. I've recently gone ahead and created WP:WikiProject Freedom of speech. If you're interested, here are some easy things you can do:

  1. List yourself as a participant in the WikiProject, by adding your username here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Freedom_of_speech#Participants.
  2. Add userbox {{User Freedom of speech}} to your userpage, which lists you as a member of the WikiProject.
  3. Tag relevant talk pages of articles and other relevant pages using {{WikiProject Freedom of speech}}.
  4. Join in discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Freedom of speech.
  5. Notify others you think might be interested in Freedom of speech to join the WikiProject.

Thank you for your interest in Freedom of speech, — Cirt (talk) 22:30, 25 October 2012 (UTC)

Help pick Newyorkbrad's FA project

Feel free to suggest and/or discuss at User talk:Newyorkbrad/Newyorkbradblog your preferred options. :) Cheers, — Cirt (talk) 18:02, 6 November 2012 (UTC)

Afroyim v. Rusk hopefully FAC soon

Hi. I'm getting Afroyim v. Rusk (a 1967 citizenship law case) ready for a FAC bid, and I'd like to invite any interested editors to go have a look at the article and offer any comments. I'm hoping to resolve as many issues as I can before jumping into the FAC process. Thanks for any help. — Richwales 22:17, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

Al Odah v. United States (Ugh)

I know that by name it is not technically SCOTUS, but it's about a Gitmo prisoner, some of whose numerous habeas claims have been rolled into cases such as Rasul and Boumediene. I want to break it up to differentiate between earlier filings, and his 2010 filing that SCOTUS declined cert on last year. I think this a really cool case, as it suggests that SCOTUS thinks that we've finally gotten the review process for Gitmo detainees right. Part of me just wants to gut the page, make references to Rasul and Boumediene, and then talk about the 2010 habeas filing. As it stands, the article is full of axe-grinding, like most articles about cases re: Gitmo detainees. Any thoughts? Thanks! nukerebel (talk) 12:55, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Oral arguments ­— in "Background" or "Opinion of the Court"?

Up until this very recent change to our style guide page, it was recommended that discussion of oral arguments before the Supreme Court should be put at the start of the "Opinion of the Court" section. Now, however, the (newly revised) style guide says to put oral arguments at the end of the "Background" section.

I'm happy to do it either way, but I just want to make sure there really is (or is not) a consensus for this change. I didn't see any discussion of the issue here on the talk page. What do people think? — Richwales 16:54, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

The Opinion section is really supposed to discuss just that: the opinion(s). Oral argument is part of the proceedings leading up to that opinion, and in that sense, background context. If there's enough content to justify it, a subheader in the background section for the Court's consideration might be best. postdlf (talk) 17:16, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
Hah, I just came here to start a section about the style guide and making it more broadly applicable to our articles. I'll do that now. --MZMcBride (talk) 17:24, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
I'll agree that having oral arguments under "Opinion of the Court" doesn't really make sense to me. "Background" initially struck me as someplace where events prior to, and leading up to, the case would go — and the oral arguments seem to me to fall somewhere in the middle — but I think I would feel OK with having an "Arguments before the Supreme Court" subsection under "Background", and moving the oral arguments there. Note that I'm preparing Afroyim v. Rusk for FAC — I'll hold off on nominating it until we have this layout question settled. — Richwales 17:43, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

FAC Review of Washington v. Texas

I have put Washington v. Texas up for FA. You can find the discussion here. Feel free to add your comments and suggestions on improving the article. Best, Lord Roem (talk) 01:43, 28 November 2012 (UTC)

Still would love some substantive comments/suggestions/opposes/supports/anything on the FAC page. Lord Roem (talk) 01:23, 9 December 2012 (UTC)


Project's style guide and article standardization

Hi. I'd like to begin an open editing/drafting period of Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases/Style guide with the ultimate goal of settling on a particular format/style for U.S. Supreme Court articles. The justification for using a style guide is outlined at Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases/Style guide#Purpose. I was also reminded when reading the intro to our WikiProject that one of our goals is to bring uniformity to U.S. Supreme Court articles.

My plan, broadly, is to reach consensus on how articles should (not must, but should) be formatted, document this consensus at WP:SCOTUS/SG, and then begin using bot-generated reports to find articles not matching the style guide and make them consistent. Does this sound unreasonable to anyone?

In terms of a timeline, I figure a two-week open editing period is sufficient (so December 14). This isn't to say that the style guide will become immutable after two weeks. This is a wiki, of course. But I do want to definitively nail down aspects such as standard article headers, article lead, etc. And, yes, silence is consensus. ;-) So if you have strong views about how leads or the article structure should look, now is the time to speak up! --MZMcBride (talk) 17:33, 30 November 2012 (UTC)

Probably the best way to start would be to offer examples of what we think are successful SCOTUS articles in terms of organization. That may lead the way to multiple approaches to different elements being recognized as good ones. postdlf (talk) 18:03, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
OK, then, have a look at Afroyim v. Rusk (which I'm currently preparing for FAC). I moved the material relating to the arguments (including oral arguments) to a new "Arguments before the Court" subsection under "Background". What do people think about this?
People may also want to look at United States v. Wong Kim Ark, which became a Featured Article earlier this year. Once we've decided on layout changes here, I (or someone else) can go improve Wong Kim Ark accordingly. However, since this is already a Featured Article, I'd advise against making any nontrivial changes to it until after we've reached a consensus here as to how our articles should be laid out. — Richwales 18:22, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
I like and have advocated for the "Background"/"Opinion of the Court"/"Subsequent developments" model as I think it's clean, straightforward, and broadly applicable, but I don't want to seem pushy or overbearing in this process. We don't have many featured articles these days (the few we did have were subsequently de-listed), so I'm not sure if there are (many) good/great models to follow. United States v. Wong Kim Ark and Afroyim v. Rusk both follow the model I've advocated, but mostly as a result of my actions. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:56, 30 November 2012 (UTC)
OK, thanks. So I'll put the oral argument stuff in Afroyim v. Rusk at the end of the "Background" section (where it is now). I've received feedback from several people on this article, and I think it's basically ready for FAC now. — Richwales 05:54, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
I'm sorry, but I disagree with the arguments being in background. In my view, background should be everything leading up to the granting of cert., and the arguments subsection should be the first part of the opinion section. Normally, the argument of one of the parties will become the basis for opinion or plurality judgment of the Court. As an example of this, I just wrote an article, Salazar v. Ramah Navajo Chapter, that uses that style. Although currently unassessed (due to its newness), I think it demonstrates what I mean. Although it doesn't help here, another SCOTUS FA is Ex Parte Crow Dog, it was promoted earlier this year to FA. Regards, GregJackP Boomer! 12:31, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

Based on the strong consensus above I changed the draft style guide's instruction on the template to be used in the lead section. UnitedStatesian (talk) 12:17, 13 December 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, where are you seeing strong consensus for an external link in the lead? I only see two comments supporting such an idea, one of which is yours. The general principle (keeping the case citation in the article lead) has fairly strong consensus, however. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:37, 14 December 2012 (UTC)

Hi. It's been two weeks and there haven't been any objections to the style guide (other than a minor quibble about which specific case citation template is used). I've re-generated a report showing which article leads follow the style guide and which do not: Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases/Reports/B. Assuming there are no objections in the coming days, I'm going to hopefully begin a more serious effort to standardize the case leads. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:38, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I have some objections. First, I think this is better: Case name, XXX U.S. YYY (ZZZZ), is a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States ... By using the citation, we are identifying the decision, and the decision (i.e., opinion) is really what the subject of the article is--what the Court said and what the impact of what it said is on the law and the "real world." Present tense is also required because we are talking about a document that still exists: Texas v. Johnson was a case heard by the Supreme Court; the case is over. But Texas v. Johnson, 491 U.S. 397 (1989) is a decision and will always be a decision even if someday overruled.

Second, I'm wary of imposing too much conformity just for the sake of conformity. And this is partly why I want dropped entirely the "...in which the Court held ..." because that won't necessarily be the best intro for all articles. Particularly given that SCOTUS opinions vary widely in complexity and relative impact on the nation, there needs to be flexibility in how they are structured and in how their key points are introduced and summarized.

So maybe the better approach might be to lay out some principles rather than promulgate a literal, fill-in-the-blanks template. postdlf (talk) 04:15, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you're thinking about this at a higher level than I am. My primary concern lately has been not necessarily whether we use "is" vs. "was" or call it a decision vs. a case, but simply trying to ensure that every article (for example) begins with the case name in bold and italics, followed by a uniform case citation. I keep coming across articles such as this that really aren't acceptable (and this is hardly the worst example, some case articles are simply copy-paste dumps from Justia or OpenJurist or wherever...).
This version of the report ignores everything past the case citation. That is, it's only looking for cases that do or do not contain a line that starts with "Foo, XXX U.S. YYY (ZZZZ),". I think it makes more sense to ignore or side-step the rest of the lead if it means being able to move forward on the really, really low-level goals such as making sure that every article begins with a case name and includes a uniform case citation and an infobox. Of course, it would be nice while making some of these edits to also be able to clean up and standardize other parts of the article, but if we need to do that in multiple passes in order to give people time to continue to formulate a style guide, that's fine.
I'd really like to see some forward progress here, though. As I've said previously, what the format is (or formats are) doesn't matter to me as much as ensuring that our case articles are vaguely consistent. I don't think we need strict rigidity to a specific layout, but the current inconsistencies between articles really needs to be addressed. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:41, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
"every article...[should] begin[ ] with the case name in bold and italics, followed by a uniform case citation." I'm on board with that, and that's really all that needs to be said, rather than putting it in the form of an example sentence. I think there may still be a few exceptions, however; the odd case where it reached SCOTUS at multiple stages and the article covers all of them, or articles about cases that achieved notability even prior to SCOTUS review and so the article is balanced more to be about the litigation as a whole rather than focusing on the SCOTUS opinion. postdlf (talk) 16:30, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Has it been decided, as opposed to assumed, that the anachronistic (but Bluebook-conforming) U.S. citations will be used on first mention for pre-1875 cases that were originally published in the nominate reporters? E.g., "Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 103 (1803)", as it appears now, may be jarring to many readers. Newyorkbrad (talk) 16:25, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

Looks like that was removed earlier this year without any fuss that I can see. So I don't see why it's a problem either way such that we need a rule from on high. Let normal editing decide what the stable form should be for the affected articles, and then if there is a "circuit split" and strong feelings about it we can address a uniform resolution then. postdlf (talk) 16:56, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
Even the "5 U.S. (1 Cranch)" form was despised by many (Felix Frankfurter once famously threatened to pull an article from the Harvard Law Review if they insisted on recasting his footnotes in the form, and Edward Bernays Wiener had even less use for it), but per the ubiquity of the Bluebook we seem to be stuck with it.... (Add to to-do list for self: write Edward Bernays Wiener.) Newyorkbrad (talk) 17:00, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
One of the many advantages to switching to a templated system (such as {{scite}}) is that, should we want to switch from "5 U.S. 103 (1803)" to "5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 103 (1803)" (or switch to "5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 103 (1803)"), it'll only require a single template edit. There's a one-to-one relationship between the early volumes and reporter surnames. As long as the template is fed the volume number, the citation output can be easily manipulated (if $volume < X, output Y, otherwise output Z) based on present or future consensus.
There are also a number of other advantages to a consistent (standardized) style, including easier machine-readability, which will help in the generation of future reports. For example, once there is a standardized system for case citations, we can much more easily find citations that do not have redirects.
And some smarter logic in {{scite}} or {{Infobox SCOTUS case}} would allow for much better auto-categorization as well (by volume, by year, by Court, etc.). But until every page is using these templates (and using them appropriately!), this logic can't be easily implemented.
Consistency is the first step toward greatness. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:29, 15 December 2012 (UTC)
  • Comment: I think it's worth emphasizing that in writing the Opinion of the Court section in particular, attention should be paid to WP:OR and WP:PRIMARY. I know this is perhaps slightly outside the ambit of a style guide, but in my opinion this is a major problem with a lot of the legal-related articles here. I find that a lot of the SCOTUS articles are written in a "here's what I think it means -- based on what happened in Con Law the other day!" kind of way. It should be more of a "here's what somebody said this means in a law review article" format. Not thinking of any articles in particular, really. AgnosticAphid talk 19:29, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
    • To be honest, I don't think most lay readers are going to be much better at figuring out what a law review article "means" than what a SCOTUS decision "means," and scholars also endlessly debate the meaning of what other scholars have written. The problem is not when we use an opinion to write a description about it, but instead when the description of the opinion veers into OR analysis or opinion. There is no problem with simply giving a straightforward description of what the opinion says, particularly when most opinions have a syllabus attached that gives a concise summary of its key points (really a secondary source itself in many ways, as it is the Reporter of Decision's boiling down of what the Court has written). The same day that the Court hands down an opinion, it is also invariably covered in news sources that will attempt to give a sense of its impact on the parties and the law (what it "means", I assume you intended), probably with quotes from interest groups or scholars. There is even a problem with not relying on the primary source opinion, because without familiarity with it you can't tell what an AP story may get wrong or over emphasize, or what might be a scholar's opinion instead of a straightforward reading of the text. Same problem arises if you were to write an article on a movie, for example, entirely based on critical reviews without ever seeing the movie yourself.

      The style guide is also relevant here, by separating out all of these functions the article is to perform. The description of the opinion should not itself contain analysis but should be in a separate section, which should also be separate from a summary of reactions to it, which is in turn separate from a summary of subsequent jurisprudence based on it, etc. This minimizes the potential for OR to sneak into what should aim for an objective, neutral description of what the opinion did (i.e., its holding) and what reasoning it offers in explanation. postdlf (talk) 19:52, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

You've raised a lot of complex points here. I support not putting analysis into the Opinion of the Court section. But I disagree with a lot of the rest of what you've written. I don't think it's appropriate for us to decide that how the AP reported something is wrong or incomplete or that some scholar's view is unworthy of weight. That's OR unless some other journalist or scholar said one of those two things. Your comments leave me with this sense that wikipedia editors (or, perhaps, wikipedia editors with an interest in writing articles about supreme court opinions) are somehow more reliable or an appropriate source than the AP or some egghead. But that's just not true. It's not appropriate for us to write legal analysis with the sort of independent skepticism of sources that you describe. Why are our opinions more comprehensive or less obtuse than the AP or a law review? Even relatively straightforward and uncontroversial OR statements don't belong on wikipedia, and I think that Supreme Court opinions can be about as far from straightforward and uncontroversial as you can get. If some reliable source says, "wow, that AP article really left out important issue X" or "why didn't that scholar consider practical consequence Z?" than we should totally use that commentary to an article's legal analysis. But it's really not appropriate for us to come to one of those two conclusions ourselves.
Anyway, just my two cents. I am not active in reviewing articles for FA or even GA, but if I were I would strenuously oppose any article that suffered from what I view as these flaws and for that reason I think it's worth mentioning OR, SYNTH, and PRIMARY problems in the style guide. But YMMV.AgnosticAphid talk 23:05, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
No, you misunderstood everything I said (or at least are characterizing it poorly). You're also misunderstanding the relationship between OR and primary vs. secondary sources (on that, the SCOTUS opinion itself is a more reliable source for its own content than an AP wire story attempting to report on that opinion). Regardless, I don't think it's much use arguing over such abstractions outside of concrete, specific issues, because in practice it could turn out that we don't actually disagree as to how to resolve a particular editing issue. I'm fine with a mention in the style guide of "avoid OR" or "do not present your own analysis; instead, any analysis or criticism of the Court's opinion must come from reliable secondary sources, and the Wikipedia article should take care to present the views in those sources with proper weight and neutrality." postdlf (talk) 23:32, 17 December 2012 (UTC)
Concur with Postdlf. Legal articles on cases are a little different, and as he says, there is a difference between OR/SYNTH and Primary/Secondary sources. For the opinion itself (and sometimes for some of the background/history), the Court's opinion is the best source. We should still use secondary sources, if available, but in cases of conflict in those areas, the opinion should control. For subsequent development or anywhere that analysis is needed, it needs to be clearly documented in a secondary source. GregJackP Boomer! 13:03, 18 December 2012 (UTC)
Well, OK. But we do have a policy about WP:PRIMARY sources – that they shouldn't be used – and I don't think that per WP:LOCALCONSENSUS we can just say, "well, legal articles are just different so let's make extensive use of primary sources." Now, that policy does say that primary sources are OK if they're making straightforward claims that any educated person can verify, and if we just parrot the Opinion in the Opinion of the Court section maybe that's what we're doing, but given that we are dealing with US Supreme Court articles and also that describing an opinion can easily verge into legal analysis (in part because background information may be required), I think it's worth making a note in the style guide. But like I said, YMMV.AgnosticAphid talk 17:06, 19 December 2012 (UTC)
WP:PRIMARY does not say primary sources "shouldn't be used" (as your comment later acknowledges). An article about a SCOTUS opinion is an article about a primary source. That's fundamentally what is different here with case law articles, just as with any article about a document or creative work of any kind; the document or work itself is the most authoritative and comprehensive source for its own content. Take a look also at this past discussion on the same issue, in the context of articles about works of fiction. postdlf (talk) 17:26, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

WP:MOSLAW has, as long as I can remember, stated that secondary sources are preferred, but primary sources should also be used, and in the case of conflict about what the opinion actually says (not analysis), the primary source controls. Postdlf has it exactly right on what the issue is, and what is fundamentally different. GregJackP Boomer! 18:25, 19 December 2012 (UTC)

UTC)

That link about plot summaries was an interesting read, thanks. I should have said, "we have a rule that primary sources should be used carefully," not "they shouldn't be used." All I am trying to say is that if we need to use care when basing plot summaries on primary sources that we need to be super duper careful in this context. There is a big difference between being okay with summarizing a book chapter as "Billy Jo went to the store to buy milk, but she stumbled into a hostage situation!" and saying in an article, "Justice Breyer said that procedural due process claims prompt the following three-step inquiry..." (if that was an editor's summary of a three paragraph passage, perhaps) or some other hybrid summary/analysis/explanation of an Opinion. With the former, it really is possible for any reasonably intelligent editor to readily verify. For the latter type of situation, sometimes it would be pretty easy to verify if the legal issue is straightforward, but some article about SC opinions could be about things that are quite obtuse and difficult for those unfamiliar with law to understand. I agree it's difficult to have this discussion in the abstract.AgnosticAphid talk 08:26, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Peer review for Bryan v. Itasca County

This was recently promoted to GA and I would like to improve it to FA status. The review page is here. Thanks, GregJackP Boomer! 21:28, 17 December 2012 (UTC)

I just saw this—I can do some copyediting over the next few days. Newyorkbrad (talk) 00:08, 3 January 2013 (UTC)

Project SCOTUS Plan, scratchpad

Can someone explain what is meant by the entries in scratchpad? I'm not sure I understand where we're going with this. Thanks, GregJackP Boomer! 06:20, 2 January 2013 (UTC)

As I see it, the idea is to standardize and clean up the current articles, then expand to the missing articles (of which there are many). Most of the scratchpad is, err, a scratchpad. :-) The page is a bit of a mess right now. No idea when I'll have time and patience to clean it up properly. Any help would be appreciated. I'll try to make a note to take a look at it this upcoming week. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:52, 6 January 2013 (UTC)
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