Library Guides: U.S. Government : Judicial Branch: U.S. Supreme Court

U.S. Supreme Court

Supreme Court of the United States
official website.

A decision of a U.S. court of appeals may be appealed to yet another appellate court, the Supreme Court of the United States.

An appeal to the Supreme Court is made by filing a petition for certiorari (a document requesting a review of court records). The Supreme Court has broad discretion in determining whether to review decisions. The Court receives thousands of petitions a year, but can only review about a hundred cases in that span of time. It most often denies certiorari and hears only cases that raise important and unsettled constitutional questions or in which the federal appellate courts have reached conflicting decisions on the same issue.

HEIN U.S. Supreme Court Library
HeinOnline provides the only complete coverage of the official U.S. Reports, an indexed compilation of the official full text of all decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States and the official record of its rulings, orders, case tables, and other proceedings. In addition to the U.S. Reports, the 600+ titles in HeinOnline's U.S. Supreme Court Library include books, periodicals CRS reports, rules of the Court, and external links.
SCOTUS Topic List
SCOTUS topic list from the Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School
Supreme Court Database
The database from Washington University Law School contains over two hundred pieces of information about each case decided by the Court between the 1946 and 2012 terms

U.S. Reports

United States reports : cases adjudged in the Supreme Court [print]
The official publication of U.S. Supreme Court case law. Note: Only the printed bound volumes of the United States Reports contain the final, official opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States. Should there be any discrepancy between what you find online and what it in print, the print version will prevail.
U. S. Reports
Find U.S. reports in PDF on the U.S. Supreme Court website 1991-2014. Preliminary Reports also available.

Nexis Uni This link opens in a new window
use the Look Up a Legal Case menu to find cases from the U.S. Courts of Appeals as well as the U.S. Supreme Court.
Provides access to a wide range of news, business, legal, and reference information. Covers many news sources for 20 years. Court cases and statutes from all federal and state jurisdictions are included. Most resources can be searched in full text.
HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Choose the U.S. Supreme Court Library to search for cases.
Hein Online is a full-text research collection offering more than 900 legal journals; federal publications such as the Federal Register, U.S. treaties and agreements, U.S. Supreme Court opinions, federal legislative histories, presidential documents; a collection of legal classics; and Philip C. Jessup International Moot Court competition materials.
Westlaw Campus Research - Law This link opens in a new window
PSU02006
Thomson Reuters Westlaw Campus Research - Law is a comprehensive database of resources for researching U.S. Law. It includes primary sources including case law, statutes and regulations at the federal and state levels as well as secondary sources, e.g., American Law Reports, American Jurisprudence, and over 800 law reviews.

Find Cases by Citation/How to read a SCOTUS opinion

A case citation provides you with the necessary information to find a case in either print or electronic resources and generally follows this format:

volume number + source abbreviation + page number

Thus, 410 U.S. 113 appears in

volume 410 of the United States Reports starting on page 113

Often you will find parallel citations to the same case as reported in other official and unofficial court reporters.

How to read a SCOTUS opinion
Nice primer on how to read a SCOTUS opinion
ABA How to read a SCOTUS opinion
From the American Bar Association