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Government Documents

The Courts

  • Federal Judicial Branch
    The judicial branch is made up of the Supreme Court, Lower Courts, Special Courts, and court support organizations.
  • Supreme Court of the US
    The Supreme Court's website has the Court's docket, opinions and schedules of oral arguments, information about the supreme court, the constitution, biographies of current justices, a list of all justices who have ever served (including who appointed them, their home state, etc).
  • United States Courts
    What are the courts all about and what do they do? Find out with this clearinghouse for information from and about the Judicial Branch of the U.S. Government.

Historic Cases

Supreme Court Decisions

The opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States are published officially in a set of case books called the United States Reports. Prior to the issuance of (1) bound volumes of the U.S. Reports, the Court's official decisions appear in three temporary printed forms: (2) bench opinions (which are transmitted electronically to subscribers over the Court's Project Hermes service); (3) slip opinions (which are posted on this website); and (4) preliminary prints.

The bound volumes of the United States Reports contain the fourth and final generation of the Court's opinions. Only the printed bound volumes of the United States Reports contain the final, official opinions of the Supreme Court of the United States. In case of discrepancies between a bound volume and other iterations of opinion--or any other version of the same materials, whether print or electronic, official or unofficial--the printed bound volume controls. *

General Resources

 

  • Oyez Project
    With good coverage of the latest activity, and expanding retrospective coverage, Oyez aims to make the work of the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone through text, images, audio, and video.
  • 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.