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This is an old revision of this page, as edited by THF (talk | contribs) at 08:37, 22 August 2018 (→Argued by: +). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

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Changes to the template

This template is used on more than 500 Supreme Court case articles, and it was developed using consensus for what would look and work best. If you feel changes should be made to the template, do so only with consensus among WikiProject SCOTUS Cases members and others after first discussing the changes on this page. Personally, I like the way the template currently looks, and don't see any need to change it to use class="infobox". Thanks. --MZMcBride 05:23, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree.--Chaser T 12:06, 11 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
It is the de facto standard class for infoboxes. Using inline style should be avoided when we have a class for the job (WP:ACCESS), for consistency of appearance (the monobook skin doesn't use black borders, and all image boxes/TOCs/navboxes uses this style), accessibility (we have a hard coded white background, if a visually impaired user set their skin to white on black the box would be unreadable) and all the other benefits of separating style from content. ed g2s • talk 10:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]
ed g2s: It's funny, I was about to archive this talk page, but I tripped across this discussion from a "lifetime" ago and it made me smile. For the record, Ed was right and using class="infobox" was the right move. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 01:32, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Italicizing litigants only?

The usual formatting in official documentation of a court cases, as well as the standard formatting in news reportage, has the litigants names in italics but with the "v." between them not italicized.

Example: Brown v. Board of Education

Is there a way this can be fixed in the template? Lestatdelc (talk) 22:32, 25 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Template for state supreme court cases

Per Wikipedia:Help_desk#Supreme_Court_of_California_Template a user is looking for a template to use in articles on state supreme court cases. Seems like it would be fairly easy to modify this template for this purpose (basically, just add optional params for the state court seal image, the state name, and the court membership). Anyone have any issues with this? -- Rick Block (talk) 20:51, 22 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

It's not a problem at all. I would actually like to standardize all the federal and state supreme court cases using an infobox like Template:USCourtCase. It's on my to-do list, but I've been a little busy with Template:Elementbox, trying to finish that infobox up. You should feel free to write it if you feel inclined to do so. Thanks. --MZMcBride 03:47, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]
OK, it's at Template:USCourtCase. See in use at California v. Anderson. Note that it's currently a (separate) clone of SCOTUSCase and could be a redirect here with very minor modifications. -- Rick Block (talk) 15:54, 23 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I happened to see this template and thought we could use it on our own wiki for other purposes, with obvious modification....are these templates specific to the current release or will they work on older releases? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.8.233.10 (talk • contribs)

You will need to have ParserFunctions installed on your wiki in order to use this specific template. It's available for download here. Thanks. --MZMcBride 23:49, 31 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, I added those to the installation but one thing I noticed additionally was it seems the table settings are all showing up garbled, as in the tags for <tr>, <td> etc. Not sure if that has anything to do with the parserfunctions or not. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 209.8.233.10 (talk) 15:57, 1 February 2007 (UTC).[reply]
I'm not really sure what you mean by garbled, but I'd be happy to take a look at it if you'd like. --MZMcBride 22:37, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

--- Email me at dpalme@insightbb.com and I will provide you the URL to the site. Thanks for all the help. -- Actually I got it working, turns out I needed to add UseTidy to the LocalSettings.php file. I would however, like to thank you for the ParserFunction help! It is mucho appreciated.

Problem with Court Membership

I've had difficulties with "Court Membership" not showing up. My most recent issue came up while attaching the template to C&A Carbone, Inc. v. Town of Clarkstown, New York which was governed by the Rehnquist Court - 1993-1994. CheshireKatz 15:22, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

You're problem stemmed from the type of dash used. The one employed by this template is a "standard" dash ( - ), and the one you were using was "non-standard." Generally, the minus sign on your keyboard is the correct key. Thanks. --MZMcBride 22:39, 1 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Missing basic citations

I ran across a case (Leary v. United States) where the volume and page number were entered (fields USVol and USPage) but no other citations (field Citation), yet nothing gets displayed. The usage info above was pretty vague so I went to a random Supreme Court case to see what the proper usage of the fields should be and it had exactly the same problem. Finally, I just looked at the template code to find out what was going on and indeed the U.S. Reports volume and page number are only displayed if the Citation field is filled with not the normal U.S. cite but all the other random reporters. This seems odd since many people (like me) are lazy and don't want to fill in other random reporters. I propose that the U.S. volume and page get displayed regardless of the extra citations and that the usage documentation above gets re-written to be more clear. Pygora123 03:00, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The USVol and USPage values have been made visible by default. If you find the documentation unclear, please feel free to rewrite it. I looked and the sections seemed clear to me, but that's probably because I wrote them.... Cheers. --MZMcBride 04:29, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the quick response. Next complication: if the Citation field is included but blank, no citation seems to be displayed (Blanton v. North Las Vegas). Meanwhile, I tried to make the usage documentation a little more clear. Pygora123 05:58, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The infobox looks correct to me. It displays "Citations: 489 U.S. 538" in it. --MZMcBride 06:05, 12 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Huh, I swear it wasn't doing that last night. Oh well, thanks for taking care of it! Pygora123 04:07, 13 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Why

...are there several "Concurrence/Dissent" fields and also several "ConcurrenceDissent" fields? What's the difference? --zenohockey 04:33, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Though admittedly it seems weird, it is not a mistake, there are actually two different classifications. "Concurrence/Dissent" is for justices who wrote an opinion that literally concurs with the majority in part and dissents in part. "ConcurrenceDissent" is for justices who concur with a dissenting opinion by writing a concurrence. Hopefully that clarifies the situation. Cheers. --MZMcBride 05:03, 17 February 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Instructions for template

Some how I was directed to User:Postdlf/court_case_infobox (can't find the path I followed to get there) instead of here. The instructions seem to be consistent, but there are some differences. Is there a reason for two "guides?" --Tinned Elk 02:27, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The guide on this page is more specific to this template and should the guide that's used. --MZMcBride 03:52, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Right, but the project page links to the User:Postdlf page as how to fill in the info box. Should that link be redirected to this page instead? Also, the instructions on this page are not as complete as on the other instruction page. Should this page be beefed up?--Tinned Elk 04:15, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
The instructions here are not finished; if you'd like to finish, go for it. Postdlf's page shouldn't be redirected, the links to it should just be updated. Cheers. --MZMcBride 04:50, 13 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, another annoying question. Is there a reason that the Manual of style could not be on a separate page? Having it in the middle of the discussion page makes it difficult to see whether it is being kept up to date. It says it is not finished but there is no way of know as of what date, the last time anyone worked on it , etc. It appears that it was established on this page in 2006 (or before), can we break it off as something like Template:SCOTUS-Infobox/Manual of usage and style? I am not sure about the protocol for new pages like this.--Tinned Elk 01:11, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
If that's confusing, we could move more of the instructions to the documentation subpage, Template:SCOTUS-Infobox/doc.--chaser - t 08:08, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Done. Check out the current version of Template:SCOTUS-Infobox/doc. --Richard 08:53, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Aaghh, now all of the style manual, etc. is "transcluded" into the template page. Is that okay? It has the list of parameters in the middle of the page, and the template page includes all of the instructions. I will let you all work this out, but I think it is a good idea. Thanks --Tinned Elk 21:50, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Clarification, please. You think it is a good idea? Or did you leave a "not" out? Your message starts off suggesting that maybe this is not OK. Please clarify. --Richard 22:10, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, I was just surprised that all of the documentation from Template:SCOTUS-Infobox/doc would be transcluded right into the template page. I agree with the move, I had just never see the instructions on the template page like that and thought that perhaps transclusion was not what was intended.--Tinned Elk 01:46, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

More wikification

IMHO more words in SCOTUSCase (or in templates called by SCOTUSCase) should be wikified. For instance, in Faretta v. California, internal links could give quick access to:

Apokrif 18:48, 14 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Adding oyez sources to the template

How does everyone feel about possibly adding links to the actual oral arguments, briefs, and docket when available on Oyez to the template? I think it would be very helpful and informative, but that is just my opinion. (I'll also post this on the wikiproject page). Remember 17:32, 6 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I've added this to the template. Check out Bush v. Gore for an example. Remember 03:06, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I just added a link to the transcripts and audio to Citizens United. A script should be able to add OralArgument links to all the cases, using the Docket= field, but I don't know where to start. There's audio going back to 1969. --Elvey (talk) 07:03, 24 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Docket

I revised the docket link so it links directly to the Supreme Court and not findlaw. If someone has an issue with this or suggestions on how to make this better let me know. Remember 02:50, 18 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

What happened?

Why is this template not appearing in any articles it's in all of a sudden? Daniel Case 16:57, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

The code was screwed up when someone tried to move the documentation to a subpage. WP:BYPASS or WP:PURGE as needed if the infobox still isn't displaying correctly. Cheers. --MZMcBride 19:08, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Problem with NotParticipating

There's a problem with NotParticipating. Although it is hypertechnical, I think it is important for accuracy. NotParticipating states that they did not participate in consideration and decision. However, there are a few cases where the Justice participated in the consideration but not the decision - see Chevron, for example - http://supreme.justia.com/us/467/837/case.html. I think that a new option needs to be added for NotParticipatingDecision or some such thing. I don't have the skills to add it, however. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Timmyboy22 (talk • contribs) 07:58, 14 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Usage v Manual of Style

Is there a reason that the instructions at Template:Infobox SCOTUS case/doc are divided into the Usage portion and Manual of Style? What was the intent of the two different sections? They seem to have gotten sort of muddled. This is probably the case of people (like me) coming along and thinking - "Aha, this instruction needs to be beefed up" and does it in the wrong place (is this something for the Usage section or the Manual of Style?). I started beefing up the Manual part and then thought, no, this is an instruction of what to put there, not how it should be styled or phrased.--Tinned Elk 02:53, 16 November 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Foo

What is the purpose of all the uses of "Foo" in this template? It is causing Foo to be identified in the meta keywords as the first link in all the articles which use it, and makes the Special:Whatlinkshere/Foo tracking of links to the page wholly unfeasible. BigBlueFish (talk) 01:06, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Grr... see metasyntactic variable. That code is bad and should be re-written anyway. I'll go fix it. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:36, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I understood why that word had been chosen; I am just too bewildered by template code to understand what the purpose of using it is ;) Anyhow, if fixable then all is well. BigBlueFish (talk) 01:42, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Should be fixed now. It was used as Foo always exists. The template checks whether or not people are entering valid information into the parameters, however, a blank parameter gets screwy. So {{nw| says, if SubmitYear is blank, check the existence of Foo. If it is not blank (e.g., SubmitYear=1990), check the existence of the page 1990. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:23, 11 May 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Parameter "(legal) question"

We might add a parameter "question" or "legal question" as alternative to "holding", for cases that have been argued but not yet decided (like Herring v. United States). ––Bender235 (talk) 18:27, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sounds reasonable. I can code it if you'd like. Just let me know. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:15, 15 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
If no one else opposes, go on, code it! ;-) (also, "Case opinions" should not be displayed if there's no value for "holding") ––Bender235 (talk) 13:51, 16 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Should be done now. The new parameter is ‹See Tfd›{{{QuestionsPresented}}}. I also fixed some other minor quirks with the code. It could still stand for some (/cough/) serious cleanup, but I'll wait for a rainy day I suppose. ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 04:28, 17 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I might have found a bug.

I see that the “Citation” parameter (for parallel cites) is not mandatory, and indeed it should not be; however, if it is left out then the main case citation (to the FindLaw copy of the U.S. Reports) does not display in the infobox.

The desired behavior is indeed to leave it out if:

  • Citation: is absent AND
  • CitationNew: is present OR Docket: is present,

but to display it if either

  • Citation: is present OR
  • both CitationNew: is absent AND Docket: is absent.

(I hope that I have covered all the logical possibilities.) 69.140.152.55 (talk) 14:58, 9 October 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Use Template:Infobox..?

Hi. On smaller windows/screens, this template is noticeably wide while using a mixture of small and 100% font-sizes. Would it be worth my experimenting with Template:Infobox and font-sizes of either small or 90/95% to produce a thinner version, or would consensus be lacking? Sardanaphalus (talk) 13:42, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I wouldn't really object to using Template:Infobox, but I think you'd have an incredibly hard time getting it to work properly with Template:Infobox. There's quite a bit of magic (read: hacks) hidden in this template. But feel free to sandbox an updated version and we can look at testcases. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 20:07, 12 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Ditto. I only understand a fraction of what MZM has done here. Perhaps it'd be easier to sandbox this template and try to reduce the font sizes directly instead of trying to graft it into the Generic infobox?--chaser - t 05:22, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm starting to look into the possibility here and so far it seems feasible. (The beginnings of the Infobox version are toward the bottom of the page.) I haven't confirmed the closing braces for {{#if:{{{ArgueDate|}}}... in the current Infobox SCOTUS case code, however; and I'm assuming it's intentional that Docket3 to 5 aren't made into URLs. My instinct is that the redundancy in the #switch: for the Court composition can be reduced, perhaps by making or adapting separate templates for reference, but I haven't tried thinking this through any further yet. I've begun wondering whether {{Sidebar}} might be more suitable than Infobox. Sardanaphalus (talk) 06:52, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
PS It also looks as if {{{OralArgument}}} is meant to create a URL link; is this correct? Sardanaphalus (talk) 07:04, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, ‹See Tfd›{{{OralArgument}}} should be linked and ‹See Tfd›{{{Docket3}}}, ‹See Tfd›{{{Docket4}}}, and ‹See Tfd›{{{Docket5}}} should be unlinked. --MZMcBride (talk) 08:12, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
I think keeping the data in one row is better, though perhaps that's simply what I'm used to. Otherwise, it seems to be converting pretty nicely, though you've not yet hit the big nasty blocks of code, yet. Those probably could use subtemplates to be a bit cleaner... --MZMcBride (talk) 09:05, 13 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • Keeping the data in one row is fine until the data becomes relatively lengthy, as I see it can with the full case name, citations and histories. For now, I think I'll push on with the Sidebar version, especially as:
  • The Court membership section could transclude the following kind of {{Navbox}} within Infobox SCOTUS case (using the Navbox border parameter), thereby removing the need for the big #switch section:
These Navboxes could themselves be created via transclusion from a single template carrying the entire SCOTUS composition history. The result of transcluding something like the above within a Sidebar-based Infobox SCOTUS case would then look something like:
............
Claim
{{{Claim}}}
Prior history
{{{Prior}}}
Procedural history
{{{Procedural}}}
Subsequent history
{{{Subsequent}}}
Argument
{{{Oral Argument}}}
Holding
............
Court membership
Chief Justice
William H. Rehnquist
Case opinions
............
[etc]
(The code for the examples above has been hacked together for the sake of demonstration.)
To keep redundancy minimized, I think this would mean reorganizing the {{start U.S. Supreme Court composition}}...{{U.S. Supreme Court composition court lifespan}}...{{U.S. Supreme Court composition YYYY-YYYY}}...etc...{{end U.S. Supreme Court composition}} system so it uses the above child-Navbox approach. I think this is feasible, but do you think this would be acceptable? Sardanaphalus (talk) 06:47, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) Looks pretty good, and I like the ideas for code reduction and re-use. I do think that the sidebar version looks too Christmas tree-y with everything centered though. :-) But the use of bold middots and a reduced font size are both visually appealing. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:20, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

One more thought occurred to me. At the risk of sounding like a prat... the entire point of Template:Infobox is to standardize infoboxen throughout the project. This is clearly an infobox, so using a sidebar format seems a bit atypical. And, from all of the infoboxes I've seen used throughout the project, (almost?) all use the two column form for data (Template:Infobox Album, Template:Infobox Country, etc.). Just something to consider. --MZMcBride (talk) 07:26, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Okay, I'll go with the standard Infobox approach. If, subsequently, something else is preferred, it shouldn't be too difficult to switch formats.
    How to store and transclude the Court composition data for here and elsewhere is a subproject I'll now start looking into. (I think the solution is somewhere in my talkpage history and/or one of the Academy Award templates, as a similar situation arose there.) Thanks for your encouragement. Sardanaphalus (talk) 08:20, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • What exactly is the purpose of {{{OriginalJurisdiction}}}, e.g. why does it exist as well as the {{{Outcome}}} option..? (Sorry if I'm missing something obvious.) Sardanaphalus (talk) 21:14, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Certain cases were heard in "Original jurisdiction" or some such, which means that they don't have a decision date. So...:
{{#switch:{{{OriginalJurisdiction}}}|yes=Original jurisdiction<br/>}}
That code makes the area where the decision date would normally go read "Original jurisdiction." And then there were issues with exact terminology later on, so they also use some special code to change some terms. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:16, 14 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
  • So far, it looks to me that {{{Outcome}}} can be used to achieve {{{OriginalJurisdication}}}'s function. I haven't worked through the end of the template code yet, though, which I guess is where I'll find {{{OriginalJurisdiction}}} is needed.
  • Another (probably naive) query: Why the need for the multiple {{{MajorityN}}}/{{{JoinMajorityN}}}, {{{SeriatimN}}}, {{{ConcurrenceN}}}/{{{JoinConcurrenceN}}}, {{{Concurrence/DissentN}}}/{{{JoinConcurrence/DissentN}}}, {{{ConcurrenceDissentN}}}/{{{DissentN}}} parameters in the Case opinions section..? Seems to me only one of each pair should be needed..? Sardanaphalus (talk) 04:12, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Examples would probably help. If ‹See Tfd›{{{OriginalJurisdiction}}} = yes, then:


{{SCOTUSCase
  |Litigants=New York v. Connecticut
  |OriginalJurisdiction=yes
  |DecideDate=August 9
  |DecideYear=1799
  |FullName=The State of New-York v. The State of Connecticut, et al.
  |USVol=4
  |USPage=1
  |Citation=4 [[Alexander J. Dallas (statesman)|Dall.]] 1; 1 L. Ed. 715; 1799 U.S. LEXIS 243
  |Claim=New York moved to enjoin ejectment proceedings pending in a U.S. Circuit Court involving land over which New York and Connecticut claimed jurisdiction.
  |Procedural=Injunction denied, 4 U.S. 1 (1799) (Ellsworth, C.J.)
  |Outcome=The State of New York was not a party to the ejectment action and had no interest at stake, because the Circuit Court lacked the power to determine its claim of rights over the disputed lands. Injunction denied.
  |SCOTUS=1799
  |Majority=Ellsworth
  |JoinMajority=Paterson, Chase, Washington
  |NotParticipating=Cushing and Iredell
}}
New York v. Connecticut
Supreme Court of the United States
Original jurisdiction
Decided August 9, 1799
Full case nameThe State of New-York v. The State of Connecticut, et al.
Citations4 U.S. 1 (more)
4 Dall. 1; 1 L. Ed. 715; 1799 U.S. LEXIS 243
ClaimNew York moved to enjoin ejectment proceedings pending in a U.S. Circuit Court involving land over which New York and Connecticut claimed jurisdiction.
Case history
ProceduralInjunction denied, 4 U.S. 1 (1799) (Ellsworth, C.J.)
Outcome
The State of New York was not a party to the ejectment action and had no interest at stake, because the Circuit Court lacked the power to determine its claim of rights over the disputed lands. Injunction denied.
Court membership
Chief Justice
Oliver Ellsworth
Associate Justices
William Cushing · James Iredell
William Paterson · Samuel Chase
Bushrod Washington
Case opinion
MajorityEllsworth, joined by Paterson, Chase, Washington
Cushing and Iredell took no part in the consideration or decision of the case.

The reason for numbered parameters is that for each opinion written, a new parameter is used. In some cases, multiple concurrences or dissents were written, for example:


{{SCOTUSCase
  |Litigants=''Grutter v. Bollinger''
  |ArgueDate=April 1
  |ArgueYear=2003
  |DecideDate=June 23
  |DecideYear=2003
  |FullName=Barbara Grutter, Petitioner v. Lee Bollinger, et al.
  |Citation=123 S.Ct. 2325, 156 L.Ed.2d 304, 71 USLW 4498, 91 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1761, 84 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 41,415, 177 Ed. Law Rep. 801, 03 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5378, 2003 Daily Journal D.A.R. 6800, 16 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 367
  |USVol=539
  |USPage=306
  |Prior=Held for Plaintiff and enjoined use of current admissions policy, 137 F. Supp. 2d 821 (E.D. Mich. 2001); reversed, 288 F.3d 732 (6th Cir. 2002) (en banc); certiorari granted 537 U.S. 1043 (2002)
  |Subsequent=Rehearing denied, 539 U.S. 982 (2003)
  |Holding=University of Michigan Law School admissions program that gave special consideration for being a certain racial minority did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
  |SCOTUS=1994-2005
  |Majority=O'Connor
  |JoinMajority=Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
  |Concurrence=Ginsburg
  |JoinConcurrence=Breyer
  |Concurrence/Dissent=Scalia
  |JoinConcurrence/Dissent=Thomas
  |Concurrence/Dissent2=Thomas
  |JoinConcurrence/Dissent2=Scalia
  |Dissent=Rehnquist
  |JoinDissent=Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas
  |Dissent2=Kennedy
  |LawsApplied=[[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|U.S. Const. amend. XIV]]
}}
Grutter v. Bollinger
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued April 1, 2003
Decided June 23, 2003
Full case nameBarbara Grutter, Petitioner v. Lee Bollinger, et al.
Citations539 U.S. 306 (more)
123 S.Ct. 2325, 156 L.Ed.2d 304, 71 USLW 4498, 91 Fair Empl.Prac.Cas. (BNA) 1761, 84 Empl. Prac. Dec. P 41,415, 177 Ed. Law Rep. 801, 03 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 5378, 2003 Daily Journal D.A.R. 6800, 16 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. S 367
Case history
PriorHeld for Plaintiff and enjoined use of current admissions policy, 137 F. Supp. 2d 821 (E.D. Mich. 2001); reversed, 288 F.3d 732 (6th Cir. 2002) (en banc); certiorari granted 537 U.S. 1043 (2002)
SubsequentRehearing denied, 539 U.S. 982 (2003)
Holding
University of Michigan Law School admissions program that gave special consideration for being a certain racial minority did not violate the Fourteenth Amendment.
Court membership
Chief Justice
William Rehnquist
Associate Justices
John P. Stevens · Sandra Day O'Connor
Antonin Scalia · Anthony Kennedy
David Souter · Clarence Thomas
Ruth Bader Ginsburg · Stephen Breyer
Case opinions
MajorityO'Connor, joined by Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Breyer
ConcurrenceGinsburg, joined by Breyer
Concur/dissentScalia, joined by Thomas
Concur/dissentThomas, joined by Scalia
DissentRehnquist, joined by Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas
DissentKennedy
Laws applied
U.S. Const. amend. XIV

--MZMcBride (talk) 04:31, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Thanks for the above; I'll look over it now. I also meant to include a query about the line code at
-->{{#if:{{{ConcurrenceDissent5|}}}|Concurrence by: {{{ConcurrenceDissent5}}}<br/>}} ...
which ends with
... <!-- Ending Holding #if -->}}<!--
So far, I'm not sure where the start of the "Holding #if" is located -- it isn't the end of the {{#if:{{{ArgueDate|}}}... mentioned much earlier above..? Seems very distant. Thanks for any help pointing me in the right direction. Sardanaphalus (talk) 04:38, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That "}}" ends the code "{{#if:{{{QuestionsPresented|}}}||" I believe. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:58, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • Ah yes, thanks. I also worked out where {{#if:{{{ArgueDate|}}}... ended. Thanks also for the two example templates above, which reminded me that the various possible permutations of the Court's findings need to be handled. So, here's the prototype Infobox version -- without a working Court composition section, as I'm still getting my head around handling that in a wider context. I also have the feeling that the Categorization at the end of the template may be streamlined somehow, perhaps using one or more #switches. You may already have been there and tried it, though..? Sardanaphalus (talk) 06:58, 16 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Notes upon a cursory look at the template:

  1. Having the text smaller next to "Submitted," etc. looks strange. One font for entire section would probably be better.
  2. Full case name should probably be two-columned like all the other fields. Seems strange to distinguish it so much.
  3. Docket2, Docket3, etc.: might be better to use bold middots there or semi-colons. I liked how the bold middots looked when you used them in earlier prototypes.
  4. Instead of Template:SCOTUS composition, I might suggest using a subpage of Template:Infobox SCOTUS case (like Template:Infobox SCOTUS case/Composition), but only if it's only going to be used in conjunction with the infobox. If not, a separate template is fine. (Don't know what your current reuse plans are.)
  5. Putting the "Joined by" text under the main author is interesting and might work well, I'm just a bit concerned how it will look with four or five (or as many as seven) names there.
  6. The "Seriatim" parameter seems to not be set to valign="top" which looks strange mixed in with the other rows.
  7. There looks to be some whitespace under the "Overruled" parameter which should be removed.
  8. The "This box" links should probably only include "view" and "talk." As you're aware, not many people would find the "edit" link very useful. ;-)

--MZMcBride (talk) 00:01, 17 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the above. Taking your observations in order:
  1. The smaller font-size would only appear on the template page.
  2. Well, I've noticed these full case names can be quite long, but, for now at least, have switched it to the two-column format. I have the feeling, though, that other as well as this might be too long for the two-column format.
  3. Okay, have restored the (middot) dividers. As above, though, their length may mean linebreaks between them are a clearer presentation.
  4. I've been experimenting with the possibility of the "all-in-one" template to handle the Court compositions here and in place of {{start U.S. Supreme Court composition}} etc, but currently have a design that'd simply be too bloated. For now, I could transfer the Court composition code used in Infobox SCOTUS case to a separate template in order to cut down Infobox SCOTUS case's size..?
  5. I agree and will see what I think when some test examples are created.
  6. Fixed by preventing the "Seriatim opinion" label from wrapping.
  7. Have reduced accordingly.
  8. At present, I don't think it's possible to amend the settings for the {{Tnavbar}} used here; I'll request this at {{Infobox}}.
Sardanaphalus (talk) 18:35, 21 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]
Updates to the above:
2. Looking at the two tests (so far) here, especially Grutter v. Bollinger, I think the two-column format squeezes the data, especially in the first section (Full case name, Citations, histories, etc). Permission to implement one-column format?
3. The tests suggest to me that the middot is too insubstantial as a divider. How about ndashes?
4. I'm now thinking about an "all-in-one" template fed by 17 (!) subtemplates, i.e. one for each Chief Justice to date. An example of one of these templates (for the first CJ, John Jay) is here (the name "SCOTUS courts" will need updating) with tests here.
5. I've now amended the "Joined by" behavior.
Sardanaphalus (talk) 10:47, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

(unindent) Sure, try the one-column layout and we'll see how it works. (You may also want to poke Chaser or Postdlf if they're about; they'll likely have opinions on this as well.)

The middot does seem rather insignificant. An en-dash or perhaps even a <br /> might be better.

The composition boxes look fine, my only concern would be if there were periods without any Chief Justice (which is certainly possible). Again, I'd poke Chaser or Postdlf to weigh in. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:07, 23 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

  • The tests page now shows the one-column format, both formats, including newlines rather than middots as dividers in the one-column version. The "all-in-one" court composition template without subtemplates is back in the frame -- same links as above -- and since it's organized by Chief Justice, a Chief Justice's name would always appear at the top. I'll now leave invites for Chaser and Postdlf. Sardanaphalus (talk) 16:52, 26 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It looks excellent. Great work. Changing from the numbering above...

  1. I'm not sure the single column version is strictly necessary, as Grutter v. Bollinger contains an unusually high number of citations (although the history there looks typical, where we have it). In any case, I prefer the two-column version mostly due to familiarity. You might ask at WT:SCOTUS for style opinions.
  2. MZM is right about periods w/o Chief Justice. Pinkerton v. United States was decided and heard after Stone died, but before his successor took over. There are probably others (see here for the gaps). That said, anything would be an improvement on our current system of fudging it. If you do sub-templates, it doesn't matter if a "Stone" template includes the brief gap period after his death. Readers won't see the template name or care.
  3. Here's how to remove the edit link [1].

Well done.--chaser - t 05:55, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I support the two column version as well—as well as looking better esthetically, it also functions to better visually separate the blocks of information. Postdlf (talk) 14:14, 28 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Sick of scrolling section break

  • Thanks for the feedback, encouragement and assistance. Looks like the two-column version will be preferred, so the remaining quandry is handling the Court composition. The current system uses years via {{{SCOTUS}}} to identify a Court composition, unlike the system here, Template:SCOTUS courts, which would need a Chief Justice's surname {{{CJ}}} and a number {{{court}}} identifying the Nth composition during his tenure. So,
    1. Using Template:SCOTUS courts (which, as above, could also supersede {{start U.S. Supreme Court composition}}...etc used elsewhere) would mean replacing {{{SCOTUS}}} in all instances of Infobox SCOTUS case with the correct {{{CJ}}} and {{{court}}}. There's also the periods without Chief Justices to accommodate.
    2. Alternatively, I could try producing a less involved version of Template:SCOTUS courts solely for use with Infobox SCOTUS case (i.e. only move the fudge elsewhere);
    3. Or something else. I realize that what I'm looking for is a way to have all the Court compositions in one place, with no particular formatting, to which templates such as Infobox SCOTUS case, Template:SCOTUS courts and/or Template:SCOTUS composition could refer and apply appropriate formatting. So far, though, I haven't worked out or seen how that can be done without duplicating the composition information or producing cumbersome-looking code. Could a computer programmer somewhere enlighten me, or am I looking to try something that can't yet be done?
Sardanaphalus (talk) 14:10, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

As a general note, parameters should generally avoid acronyms ({{{ChiefJustice}}} instead of {{{CJ}}}) to avoid confusion. The current implementation uses years rather than names, so breaking that should really probably be avoided. Using years also has the advantage of covering almost all periods, including periods where the Chief Justice was not active.

I'm inclined to leave court composition information separate, though the current code being used in Template:Infobox SCOTUS case could certainly use some cleanup / de-duplication. The best reason to keep the data separate is that the display format (I believe) is currently different. The infobox uses full names, while the court composition boxes use first initial, last name. The idea about keeping "all the Court compositions in one place, with no particular formatting" is a good one, but I'm not sure how feasible it is, especially given the limited string manipulation abilities of the current software.

Going forward, I think the best option is to just focus on this infobox and leave the other templates alone for the moment. I would cut out the large block of code from this template and use a sub-template to reduce the <br /> and bold duplication. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:42, 30 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

My only concern with this template is that the remaining 8 members of the Court beyond the CJ are referred to as "Associate Justices", not "Associate Judges". BigD527 (talk) 19:14, 4 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Code updates (May 2009)

I put up some updated test cases here: Template:Infobox SCOTUS case/testcases. Not a huge fun of the extra line-height. When there's so much information, keeping it as compact as possible seems wise. Any thoughts on re-compacting it a bit? And, please, let's try to avoid breaking anything (silly typo caused an important link to break). ;-) --MZMcBride (talk) 16:16, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Line-height tweaked - how's that? To be honest I'd rather we didn't override it, but we can roll with this for now. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 20:13, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Looks better. The one other thing I noticed is that the box no longer has the "This box: view / edit" links. Intentional? I could go either way on the links, personally. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:40, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Intentional. On infoboxes those links are usually just confusing, because editors assume that clicking them will allow them to edit the data in that page's infobox, not the template logic itself. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 21:07, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Makes sense to me. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:26, 6 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Superseded and overruled sections

As seen in the infoboxes in Dred Scott v. Sandford and Minersville School District v. Gobitis, the header for the superseded and overruled sections is not appearing as a red band spanning the box, but rather just as a highlight of the header text (and thereby incorrectly appearing as a subtopic of "laws applied"). It should look like it does in Template:Infobox SCOTUS case/sandbox, which seems to have an older version of the template code. Could someone please fix this? The code is currently a little beyond me. Postdlf (talk) 19:27, 26 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I tried. And failed miserably. Apparently Template:Infobox has re-invented mathematics and no longer uses a standard numbering system. I'll ping Chris about this on his talk page. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:17, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Heh.  : ) I love your edit summary. Yeah, I had the same problem—trying to turn the superseded and overruled fields into headers just placed the red highlighted text in a blue bar, and made the "laws applied" content field disappear. I think part of the problem is the headerstyle field near the top of the template code, which sets a default color. I don't know why the other problem with the "laws applied" field is happening. Postdlf (talk) 01:25, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I restored the div style code to those fields, so the end result will look as it should. It doesn't look too pretty on the template page itself, however. I'm sure someone smarter than me can figure out how to fix that and to simplify the code, but this time hopefully without changing its appearance. Postdlf (talk) 02:26, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Tidied. To be quite honest I don't really see the value in giving these red backgrounds when we could just use standard headers - the infobox isn't like a medicine bottle where the important stuff needs special highlighting. But for now the code is clean again. Chris Cunningham (not at work) - talk 08:04, 27 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal: add fields for "RespondentArgueby" and "PetitionerArgueby"?

I'd like to propose that we permit an optional field for the names of the attorneys who argued the case. If I were king of the world, this information would never belong in any USSC article, as it's rarely notable, and reeks of vanity and gossip. However, it keeps cropping up in articles, and always in the Lead (because that's where people put things that don't belong anywhere else). I sometimes delete it, but I know some confederate of the attorney or firm is going to slip it in when I'm not looking -- and I don't want to descend to an edit war.

Instead, I'd like to move this stuff to some innocuous position in the Infobox, with an edit summary like "moved attorneys' names to infobox per Policy X". Then if someone tries to slip it back into the Lead, I'll say, "hi there, Policy X says that belongs only in the Infobox." He gets to enjoy his vanity, and I get to enjoy an uncontaminated article. Agradman appreciates civility/makes occasional mistakes 20:46, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that it's often unimportant, though I think incorporating it into page text isn't too difficult or awkward. I'd be inclined to not want it in an infobox. Adding the parameter actively encourages users to seek out and add the info, something I think we want to avoid. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:54, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Previous discussion here. If lawyers spamming themselves is what we're avoiding, I don't think this will be an effective solution. Instead of an "optional" field, we'll have a hodgepodge of the truly notable (Thurgood Marshall in Brown) and spam. But is this really a serious problem?--chaser (talk) 22:36, 18 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Datelinks?

Can someone explain this to me. It appears that the template makes the articles it is used on link to the dates that are used in the template. The links are not visible in the article, but they appear in Special pages such as Special:WHatLinksHere and Special:RecentChangesLinked. Example. Special:RecentChangesLinked/Chisholm v. Georgia shows changes in the article February 5. And Special:WhatLinksHere/February shows that Febryary is linked from Miller v. Schoene. Rettetast (talk) 22:10, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The template tests several parameters to see whether there exist articles of the same name, using {{#ifexist:...|...|...}}. Even though the pages are not in fact linked, the test is sufficient for the connection to be recorded on WhatLinksHere.
If a relevant parameter is assigned a value and there exists no wiki page of that name (perhaps because a date is misspelled or badly punctuated), then the template flags the argument as invalid by categorizing the transcluding article under Category:Flagged U.S. Supreme Court articles.
The parameters tested are: SubmitDate, SubmitYear, ArgueDate, ArgueYear, ArgueDateA, ReargueDate, ReargueYear, ReargueDateA, ReargueDate2, ReargueYear2, ReargueDateA2, DecideDate and DecideYear.
— Richardguk (talk) 23:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Cross-referencing to User talk:Full-date unlinking bot#Template:Infobox SCOTUS case. — Richardguk (talk) 13:30, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

WP:MOSDASH

Dear colleagues, this template presents a problem in that when the year-range hyphen is changed to an en dash, as has been required for some years by the style guide, the names of the judges are not displayed.

As Mackensen and User:Christopher Parham have pointed out: compare the court membership session in [2] vs. [3].

The dash bot widely used to bring articles into compliance on this matter changes this punctuation as well as that in the main text. In addition, the year ranges on the documentation page overleaf need to be changed to en dashes.

My question is: can the syntax in this template be changed to accept both hyphen and en dash in this role, since it will be a gradual job to bring these articles into line with current practice. Tony (talk) 01:10, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Yes it can be changed to accommodate both. Doing so would be mind-numbingly stupid, though. It's template code. It shouldn't be using special characters or trying to adhere to a style guideline meant for article text. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:18, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
The reason for doing so is so that Greg U's excellent dash script can be run through this large category of articles, which desperately need to be updated in this respect (aside from the appalling level of overlinking). The script is not built to disregard wrongly used hyphens within infoboxes.
So, can this be done, please? Tony (talk) 13:39, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I can't say that a hyphen is "wrongly used" when it's just entered as part of a template parameter; it doesn't get displayed that way when executed, and it makes sense for template code to be based on simple keyboard strokes. So it isn't a good idea at all to remove the template's ability to accept hyphens. As for whether it should also accept en dashes...MZMcBride is more of a code expert than I am, so he'd be better able to tell whether it's worth the trouble. Why not alter your script to disregard hyphens used in template code? I don't see why that would be any more difficult. postdlf (talk) 13:49, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I don't really want to be the one to do it, but if you were going to, you'd update Template:Infobox SCOTUS case/courts with the content from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=350802821 and then update the Template:Infobox SCOTUS case#Court membership documentation. That should work, though I haven't tested it thoroughly.

Still, wiki template code is essentially a programming language. A really stupid programming language, granted, but not something to apply article text style guidelines to. That isn't to say that programming languages don't often have their own style guidelines, but in order to be as accessible as possible, nearly all programming languages rely on keys that are easiest to type. PHP would never use "→" when "->" will always work, for example. I agree with postdlf: it would be much wiser to have this script ignore template parameters. Perhaps not their values, but the parameter names themselves are easier to leave alone than not. --MZMcBride (talk) 15:38, 19 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No need to modify this template; I should be able to add this as a special case to my script, as I have with other templates. The only question I have is, are you aware of any other templates with the same situation – where a hyphenated number or year range is used as a key? I want to make the fix as general as possible. —GregU (talk) 06:07, 20 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'd recommend, if possible, writing a generic exception to touching all template parameter names. However, knowing that trying to parse MediaWiki syntax is nearly impossible, I realize this may not be doable. I don't know of any other templates that use a similar year range pattern. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:18, 20 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]
It's in the value, not the name (|SCOTUS=1988-1990) and many other templates with year ranges in values like this display them instead of using them as keys. I'll probably just add "SCOTUS" to the list of prefix exception words. Assuming phrases like "SCOTUS 1998–2005" don't normally occur in prose... —GregU (talk) 14:51, 20 March 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Separate opinion

I've run into a slight problem with Coates v. Cincinnati. Hugo Black issued a "separate opinion" (see syllabus here). It's neither a concurrence nor a dissent, and I don't think it qualifies as a "seriatim opinion" either. What's the best way to handle this? Mackensen (talk) 15:27, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Huh. I would've said concurrence off-hand, though oyez.org calls it a dissent. It's easy enough to add a another parameter if necessary. I cross-posted this to WT:SCOTUS for hopefully further input. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:22, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]
See this AP account, which characterizes the decision as "5-3" and noted the Black refused to join either side. Mackensen (talk) 22:58, 1 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]

John A. Campbell

This link appears to be to a dab page, as seen at Fellows v. Blacksmith. However, the link appears to be correct at Template:Infobox SCOTUS case/courts. Could someone correct or advise? Savidan 05:30, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Fixed: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?diff=407864252&oldid=395454647. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:54, 14 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

US reports volume and page should be an optional parameter

For cases in the past few years, these are simply not available, and making them a required parameter makes this look bad. The CitationNew parameter is an incomplete solution because it just encourages un-authoritative guessing. Further, CitationNew suppresses Citations, which is non-sensical, because the Supreme Court Reporter, and plenty of other reporters, will be available long before the U.S. Reports. Savidan 17:48, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

We always know what volume they are going to be in, just not the page at first. I think we should leave in the incomplete U.S. Reports citation for the sake of completeness (ironic, no?). The Supreme Court itself tells us that the citation for this case, for example, is 563 U.S. ___ (2011). postdlf (talk) 22:54, 4 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Docket numbers

These should be de-linked for older cases that do not follow XX-XXXX. Currently, the docket numbers for old cases produce gibberish links to supremecourt.gov. Savidan 00:53, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Do you know the cutoff date? postdlf (talk) 02:46, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]
It looks like Bush v. Gore is the cut off. I'm not saying docket numbers shouldn't be included in the template for prior cases; only that they shouldn't be linked according to the current algorithm. Savidan 17:43, 21 October 2011 (UTC)[reply]

When template adds article to Category:Flagged U.S. Supreme Court articles

From discussion at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_U.S._Supreme_Court_cases#How_remove_from_.22Flagged_U.S._Supreme_Court_articles.22_category.3F:

If the SCOTUSCase Infobox contains certain errors, it will automatically add the article (that the InfoBox is within) to the Category:Flagged U.S. Supreme Court articles category. What are the errors that cause this flagging? According to user Richardguk:
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! [from user richardguk]

--Noleander (talk) 15:00, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I changed the template so it ignores ArgueDate and ReargueDate, since those are often two days, e.g. "January 14, 17". However, the offending articles still appear in the Category:Flagged U.S. Supreme Court articles ... I suppose they are inserted there whenever the article is edited/saved. So, I believe that all the articles have to have some trivial edit made to them to get them removed from the category. --Noleander (talk) 15:22, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Maybe it would be simpler to delete the entire category; then re-create it, empty? That would be a fresh start: all future save actions will add erroneous articles to the Category. --Noleander (talk) 15:25, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the feedback. I see that your template amendment has since been reverted. I've commented at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases#How remove from "Flagged U.S. Supreme Court articles" category?, as the template already has a way of dealing with date ranges. All articles and category lists should (eventually) update automatically if their templates are changed, though this can sometimes take a while if there is a backlog of server jobs (particularly for readers who are not logged in and reading cached pages). Deletion would not be simpler. — Richardguk (talk) 23:33, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why is "Outcome" param used?

The template includes a test:

{{#if:{{{Outcome|}}}|Original jurisdiction

which builds up a header string. The "Outcome" parameter is not documented in the Documentation page; and even if it were: Why is the string "Original jurisdiction" being output? Should the above be removed since it is undocumented and, apparently, erroneous? --Noleander (talk) 15:32, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(Cross-referencing Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases#How remove from "Flagged U.S. Supreme Court articles" category?) The undocumented {{{Outcome}}} parameter seems to have been added by MZMcBride in April 2007. I haven't attempted to work out what its meaning. — Richardguk (talk) 23:24, 22 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

When something is undocumented, the answer is usually to document it, not call for it to be removed because you don't understand its purpose.

Template:SCOTUSCase and original jurisdiction lawsuits

Please make sure you change the "holding" section to "outcome" for OJ suit articles. Though New York v. Connecticut only had one reported SCOTUS decision, this won't be the case for all such suits, and the infobox shouldn't try to track more than what the final resolution was, especially since these are more about the consequences for the state parties, rather than to resolve questions of law as with its appellate jurisdiction cases. There also should be a way to handle Court membership changes over the course of an OJ suit, as many of these lasted for years, or even decades. Cheers, Postdlf 03:18, 8 April 2007 (UTC)

Hope that helps. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:07, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The ndash

The en dash is mandated by MOS:DASH to indicate a date range. However, breaks the display of what justices were on the court at the time of the case.

  • ---------- with the hyphen:

Court membership

Chief Justice
   John Marshall
Associate Justices
   William Cushing · William Paterson
   Samuel Chase · Bushrod Washington
   Alfred Moore

  • ---------- with the en dash:

Court membership

Chief Justice
Associate Justices

I don't know how to fix it myself, so would request that |SCOTUSYEAR-YEAR be adjusted to be tolerant of the endash as well as the hyphen by someone who knows. Thanks, --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 18:07, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Template parameter values don't fall within the remit of the MoS. I don't think the additional code complexity is worth adding en dash support. If someone else does, it's not very difficult to add. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:59, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just making an observation based on this complaint. If it isn't a problem, then perhaps people should not complain when such a change happens. I understand the change in the edit subject to the complaint was made using semi-automated means, and deleterious effects of such replacements aren't always obvious when pressing the save button. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:48, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Fair enough. The "en dash in the parameter value" issue has come up once or twice before. I think since it's more code than article text, it makes sense to use the common "-" instead of "–". I guess ideally both cases would work, but given the extra code that's needed currently to achieve that, I've never seen the benefit outweigh the cost. Semi-automated or automated text replacement is always dangerous and full of edge cases. If someone is futzing with template parameters willy-nilly, I can't imagine what they're doing to the rest of the page text. That's simply bad user behavior, in my opinion. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:59, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Now my contributions are characterized as "futzing with template parameters willy-nilly"? I have fixed hyphens in date ranges in thousands of cases involving template parameters, without a problem until now. In all of those thousands of cases up to now, a template parameter that called for a date range simply caused the date range to be displayed in an infobox, and in many cases, there are both dashed and hyphenated date ranges in an infobox, looking mighty sloppy. There is no way to tell that this parameter needs to have a nonstandard format just by looking at it. You can't expect every editor who comes across it to study the code of the template or to compare several articles where it is used to see what kind of values are usually provided. If you had a comment "< !-- Must use a hyphen, not an en dash -- >" following the value, I wouldn't have changed it, nor would the other experienced editors who have fallen into the same trap. If you would like to add the comment to the several thousand articles that use this template, go ahead, but it might be more work than changing the template to handle the en dash. Remaining defiant about the shortcomings of the template and then insulting editors who are working hard to improve Wikipedia is not the answer, though. Chris the speller yack 15:37, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Simmer down. Your contributions aren't being characterized as anything. I said that if someone is futzing with template parameter values without regard for the possible breakage that can ensue, they're also likely screwing up many other parts of the article. That happens to be quite true.
You're free to go around fixing dashes to your heart's desire. I just looked through some of your contributions and they look great. That said, anything that's code (as opposed to article text) is very dangerous to mess with. If you change [[Category:Foo bar-baz]] to [[Category:Foo bar–baz]] or you change [[File:Hello-there.jpg]] to [[File:Hello—there.jpg]], you'll cause breakage. Same with normal links, if there's no redirect. There are a lot of edge cases with both automated and semi-automated text replacement. The scripts you're using and the manual review catch most of them, but things still slip through. I'm not really blaming anyone. As I said, this has come up for others, even without the use of any automated or semi-automated tools. But I will stand by the principle that it's very dangerous work to do these kinds of replacements, particularly if the changes affect article code instead of just article text. There are undoubtedly countless other edge cases that can be hit.
I have no desire to add a comment to this template parameter. I see no reason to, as the parameter almost never changes (unless someone comes along with a script ;-).
Regarding a "nonstandard format," that's kind of laughable. The hyphen has been used in code (and in article text) for much, much longer than the en dash. If either is "nonstandard," it is unquestionably the en dash. If you've ever done any kind of programming, you'd know that "-" is regularly used while "–" is not.
If you'd like to change the template to accept en dashes in addition to hyphens, I've already said (repeatedly) that I have no objection. I'm just of the view that the extra code to achieve such compatibility isn't worth the (extremely marginal) benefit. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:53, 25 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
I've added a comment for now to the documentation. It's a work-around that's better than nothing, and some way short of a solution because there are already thousands of such templates in place without the comment. We'll see how it goes from here. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 09:12, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]
After debugging a failed attempt to cut and paste a year value, I've reverted the modification to the documentation again. Please keep the two in sync, folks. I don't care what you do, but don't make the documentation wrong. --j⚛e deckertalk 18:17, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

I was giving this a bit more thought last night. Honestly, I'm not even sure the "SCOTUS" template parameter is needed. If you have the decision date, you can figure out which Court was seated at the time and automagically output the appropriate Court membership without the need for user input. That would resolve this issue in a much better way. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:45, 26 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps now that LUA is enabled.... ? --j⚛e deckertalk 18:15, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It's "Lua", not "LUA", by the way. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:27, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

D'oh.  :) --j⚛e deckertalk 02:05, 14 March 2013 (UTC)[reply]
{{Infobox SCOTUS case/courts}} now accepts either hyphen- or endash-separated years. I added calls to {{Module:String}} (wrapper for the Lua string functions). A test page with all 42 cases on it took 7 (+/- 1) seconds to render using the old template and 8 (+/- 1) seconds using the new one, which seems acceptable. I'll mod the docs, too. BTW, note that the document says 1811-1812 and 2010-current are valid cases, but these currently produce errors, which I'll fix also. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 21:25, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The doc is now updated to reflect the change in {{Infobox SCOTUS case/courts}} to allow endash or hyphen.
I added the 1811-1812 case*** (CJ John Marshall) to the Chief Justice section of {{Infobox SCOTUS case/courts}}, since it was missing (though the Associate Justice section was present).
I removed the 1938b case from the doc, since it was unsupported, and there is no equivalent template at Category:United States Supreme Court composition templates.
To be investigated/fixed (by someone please):
—[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:16, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for your work on this. As I said in January 2012, I believe we ultimately want to get rid of the "SCOTUS" template parameter altogether, and instead populate the "Court membership" infobox section based on the decision date. This will be far superior to the current system, as it will allow for auto-population and it will reduce the overall complexity of adding an infobox to an article.
I don't believe adding additional cases at this point makes any sense. If you'd like to work on deprecating/killing the "SCOTUS" parameter, I'd be happy to point you in the right direction. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:27, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
It seems like this might better wait for wikidata to become available for other types of data so that the court compositions can be maintained in one place with start and end dates that can be compared against, no? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:39, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think waiting on Wikidata is sensible, no. It may make life better one day, but I think we should continue to operate as though it doesn't exist until it does. User:MZMcBride/Sandbox has the work I was doing, if you have any interest in helping out. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:46, 26 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Template is too rigid

I see another editor had a problem with the template: [4]. In that discussion, there is references to a Talk page discusion from 2010 that went over similar problems. To summarize what Ive seen:

  • The template flags articles as "needing attention" when a valid date-range is input for the ArguedDate (described here)
  • The template has problems when ndashes are used (vs hyphens) reported by others: I have not tried it

It would be nice if the template were more flexible and didn't take a RTFM approach to normal user editing practices. --Noleander (talk) 18:47, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Ignore the flagged category? The input validation is rudimentary, but I don't see any particular problems being reported. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:58, 24 January 2012 (UTC)[reply]

There seems to be something in this template that set up links to the date fields specified as values in articles using this template. These are unnecesary date links, but I cannot find the code in this template that is doing this linking. Any ideas? Hmains (talk) 19:59, 27 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Where are you seeing these links? In Special:WhatLinksHere or in the HTML of the infobox? --MZMcBride (talk) 21:54, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
by going to the year article and looking for 'what links here'. Hmains (talk) 23:57, 28 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Example: 1941 and Edwards v. California Hmains (talk) 03:16, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Right. It's a quirk of some of the data input validation methods employed by this template. #ifexist relies on the pagelinks table, so even though a link isn't output, Special:WhatLinksHere will list the entry. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:21, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It is not the only one; I see at least such 6 templates like this. Is there some way to 'fix' this code? I know amost nothing about template code. Hmains (talk) 03:26, 29 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Why doesn't this template and {{Infobox COA case}} have a related cases parameter like {{Infobox United States District Court case}} for mentioning companion cases? One pair of cases where it would be used is Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. -Rrius (talk) 10:45, 18 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Rrius. There's no parameter because nobody has added one, I suppose. We typically use the "See also" section to list related cases, I think. Maybe an optional template parameter called RelatedCases would be reasonable. Are there additional examples beyond Roe where this template parameter would be useful currently? --MZMcBride (talk) 01:24, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, looking at Obergefell v. Hodges, it seems we already have a Related parameter. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 03:20, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Multiple decisions

[moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases#Multiple decisions]

Citation Duplication

I just fixed the infobox for Egelhoff v. Egelhoff, which had been showing "{{{Citation}}}" since that field was not included. The whole confuses me, however, as it's rendered -- or it renders -- redundant the two earlier lines' mention of "USVol" and "USPage". To wit, the infobox now shows the citation twice, with the first line linking to the volumes of the reporter but not listing and the second including the year but no links. Someone who better understands SOP surrounding boxes may be able to explain or remedy this result that seems to me unhelpful. Or perhaps I've misunderstood something. Czrisher (talk) 02:35, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

"Citation" is an old alias for "ParallelCitations". I fixed up the infobox in this edit. --MZMcBride (talk) 02:42, 19 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Proposal for Citation field

[moved to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases#Proposal for Citation field]

Ties between cases

|Superseded=, |Overruled=, and |Overturned= were incorrectly documented, based on how they were implemented. Someone changed |Overturned= to |Overturned previous case= to correctly match the parameter name as implemented, but still had the usage backwards. I fixed the doc to match the current implementation, but it raises some issues.

Currently:

  • |Superseded= is used as though it were named "Superseded by", since it is placed on the article for the earlier case. There is no equivalent to be placed on the later case.
  • |Overruled= is used as though it were named "Overruled by", since it is placed on the article for the earlier case. There is no equivalent to be placed on the later case.
  • |Overturned previous case= is used as though it were named "Overturns", since it is placed on the article for the later case (unlike the other two parameters). There is no equivalent to be placed on the earlier case.

This assumes that "Superseded", "Overruled", and "Overturned" have different legal definitions. If so, it seems that:

  • |Superseded= should be renamed |Superseded by=.
  • We should create and implement a |Supersedes= to be placed on the case article referred to by |Superseded by=.
  • |Overruled= should be renamed |Overruled by=.
  • We should create and implement a |Overrules= to be placed on the case article referred to by |Overruled by=.
  • |Overturned previous case= should be renamed |Overturns=.
  • We should create and implement a |Overturned by= to be placed on the case article referred to by |Overturns=.

Depending on usage and/or availability of a bot to auto-edit (probably discouraged?), we might have to maintain the old param names as well, but at least they would make sense going forward.

Comments? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 02:22, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi. Parameter names for this template use CamelCase. I don't see a compelling reason to rename any parameters. What issue are you trying to solve? --MZMcBride (talk) 03:01, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]


There are two issues being discussed as I see it:
1. You want inverse property relationships. This is implemented in the Web Ontology Language (OWL) as an "inverseOf" property of properties.
2. You want the properties to be renamed to be clearer, as described.
2.1. You want the renaming to use spaces.
I think they should be discussed separately. As for (1), yes, this is a requirement for this template to be used in WikiData, so I think this should be implemented. This is simply the next phase in this template's evolution. Unlike what you propose, all articles do not need all data, but this is a design choice. From a practical perspective, it is too much work (and probably TMI) to require (or even recommend) each article contain all inverse properties. (I forget the name, but I think the Vocabulary of Interlinked Datasets (VoID) vocab can describe whether a dataset provides inverse properties that have an implied relationship. IOW its a very design-oriented decision. We can definitely talk about though.) As for (2), yes, with the caveat that (2.1) is, as MZMcBride, less desirable than using camelCase. Unlike MZMcBride, I do not think ignoring/rejecting your entire argument is a proper response to the lack of camelCase. For the sake of your proposal, please fix it (make it camelCase) and re-propose. Otherwise your proposal will be rejected by many because of the lack of camelCase. I think you should also consider making it clearer that you want inverse property relationships. (Which is the norm in Big Data.) Int21h (talk) 03:57, 6 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
When a decision is "superseded", it means the law itself changed from what the Court had ruled upon, whether that law was a federal statute or the Constitution itself. Chisholm v. Georgia is a classic example of this, as the Eleventh Amendment was adopted basically to invalidate that decision, and more recently, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act superseded Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co..

When a decision is "overturned" or "overruled", it means it was invalidated by another, subsequent Court decision, because the Court itself simply changed its mind and rejected its earlier precedent. postdlf (talk) 00:14, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the responses.
@MZM: The issue I started out trying to solve was that the doc was wrong. It took a while to figure out exactly why, and how it was supposed to be, because the parameter purpose is self-inconsistent (two "forward" links and one "reverse") and the naming is inconsistent with their purpose. One of the joys of evolving from a world of hex addresses and then one-letter variable names was the ability to use descriptive names. We should use them properly to avoid people misunderstanding their purpose when they (commonly) won't RTFM.
@Int21h: The issue of (the uncommon use of) CamelCase or not was not what I was trying to change (and I didn't mention it). I simply am asking to make the variable names descriptive. As far as the term "inverse property relationships", while it might be used in a "formal" context, I've been a database guy "in the trenches" for decades, and I've never heard the term – the words are generic enough to mean pretty much anything, depending on context. I used terminology that I thought was descriptive and hopefully understandable by WP editors.
As far as whether to include both the "forward" (e.g. |SupersededBy=) and "inverse" (e.g. |Supersedes=) links, people don't have to use them if they don't want to (like everything else), but I think both add value. Naturally, once we can put the relationships in a table, we can render them as needed. Depending on the source, the editor may have access to only one or the other, and should be able to insert the data based on that.
Anywho, the re-worded proposal is:
0. Because of the ambiguity in the existing parameter naming, I propose that a sample audit be done to see if the parameters are actually being used as (now) documented before doing anything else.
1a. |Superseded= should be renamed |SupersededBy=.
1b. We should create and implement a |Supersedes= to be placed on the case article referred to by |SupersededBy=.
2a. |Overruled= should be renamed |OverruledBy=.
2b. We should create and implement a |Overrules= to be placed on the case article referred to by |OverruledBy=.
3a. |Overturned previous case= should be renamed |Overturns=.
3b. We should create and implement a |OverturnedBy= to be placed on the case article referred to by |Overturns=.
I do not, at this time, propose to remove either all "forward" or all "reverse" links, since it would be somewhat involved to create the opposing link when only the one to be removed exists.
How's that? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 00:48, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Support This should be done, the previous parameters declared obsolete, and documentation updated. It is clearer than current parameters. It provides forward and reverse versions (inverse versions) of "superseded", "overruled", and "overturned" properties, giving the editor more leeway, and will ease integration of data to and from WikiData as well when the time comes. I think the documentation should reflect that such inverse properties are optional (as if your proposal read "..that may be placed.." instead of "..to be placed on the case article referred to"), but this is a minor issue. (That much info in the infobox may be desirable, it may be TMI. IDK. Do whatever, we can debate it afterwards.) Int21h (talk) 02:49, 7 July 2013 (UTC) Int21h (talk) 03:42, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Int21h's follow-up comment was helpful to understanding what it is you're after here. I sometimes have difficulty following your posts.
This proposal seems fine to me. Just follow existing conventions in the template and try to keep the docs updated. I'm not sure how you plan to measure/evaluate usage of current template parameters, but I imagine that'll be annoying. A tracking category or a parser of some kind, I guess. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:54, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
I'll try to keep the annoyance to a minimum . I need to first see how many articles we're talking about, and whether there is a bot available already to do simple param renaming. To check for accuracy, I need to see if there's a legal reference available that I can build a cross-reference table from and then parse the WP articles and compare against it. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 20:37, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]
The standard practice, AFAIK, is to depreciate the old parameters first: remove them from the documentation but leave them as valid parameters in the code. Conversion of depreciated parameters should be a secondary concern. Int21h (talk) 23:49, 7 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Year missing from citation in infobox

It appears that citation in infobox doesn't include year. (Or else cases that I've looked at are missing relevant parameter and I can't figure out what it is.) For example, citation for Brown v. Board of Education should be "347 U.S. 483 (1954)" but instead is just "347 U.S. 483" (Compare this with result for ussc template which does include year: 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

Was not including year a deliberate choice or is this a mistake that should be corrected?

Sjsilverman (talk) 15:09, 2 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

That's deliberate, because as you can see in the Brown article, the completed "citation" field provides citations to all reporters, and it would be silly to keep repeating the year for each of those. I suppose we could add the year in at the end, as would be done in parallel citations in formal legal writing: Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686 (1954). But that seems unnecessary when the decision date is directly above it. postdlf (talk) 15:25, 2 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]
^ What he said. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:21, 3 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

litigants2, etc.

So is the purpose of the litigants2 and similar fields to list the additional litigants that are party to other cases that were consolidated before the Supreme Court? For instance, in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., the Court also heard American Iron & Steel Institute v. NRDC and Ruckelshaus v. NRDC. I had tried to use the template this way for the latter two cases that were part of Chevron, but it just looked like absolute hell (hard to tell where one line ends and another begins since NRDC's name is so long). Adding the second and third docket numbers looks fine though. Is there something else we could do here, or is listing the additional litigants for a case like Chevron not really necessary? —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 09:15, 15 December 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Mendaliv. Looking at its alleged usage, you might be correct that the Litigants2 parameter isn't needed. I vaguely recall seeing some U.S. Supreme Court cases where the case was titled more than once, but maybe I'm misremembering. When a case has been consolidated, I sometimes use the FullName field to list the consolidated cases, separated by semicolons. I guess separating with line breaks would also be simple enough, if you'd prefer that. (My gut feeling right now is that the Special:Search results are a bit incomplete [only about a half-dozen results] for a parameter that I could've sworn was used a bit more often... hmmm.) --MZMcBride (talk) 01:14, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Concurring in the judgment

Hello, I'm wondering if this infobox allows any way to display justices who concurred in the judgment but didn't write separately or join any of the opinions. I believe this is a rare occurrence, but it happened in, for example, Winston v. Lee, where Justices Rehnquist and Blackmun concurred in the judgment without joining any of the opinions. It's not the end of the world if their names just don't appear linked with any of the opinions in the infobox, which is currently the case, but would it make sense to add a field just for this rare case? - Sfeldman (talk) 20:53, 24 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Sfeldman. This is an issue I've struggled with as well. In some cases, a Justice joined only in the judgment. At this point, I think listing the Justice as having concurred, but including a parenthetical next to the Justice's name that clarifies that the concurrence was only for a specific part, is most appropriate. But maybe there are better ways to handle this not-uncommon scenario. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:17, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Question about the numerical court decision

Why does this Infobox not have the most basic information for a Supreme Court decision, which is the numerical vote? For example, a decision might be 5-4 or 8-1 or what-have-you. Isn't this the most basic info that readers will want to know about the decision? Why is it missing? And is there a way to add it in? (Or, is it in there somewhere, and I am somehow not seeing it?) Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:47, 25 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I think the question immediately above yours adds some color to illustrate why it isn't necessarily always so cut and dry. There isn't always a discrete way to "count" situations where a justice might concur in part and dissent in another part. Mine is by no means a complete answer to your question, so I'll step aside and let others chime in.... —grolltech(talk) 11:32, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Perhaps what you say is true. But, in cases where it is indeed "cut and dry", then there is no reason to not place the numerical vote (5-4 or 8-1 or 9-0 or what-have-you). Here is an analogy. In Wikipedia biographies, we list the date on which a person was born. Sometimes, we do not know the date, so we leave that "field" blank. That is a satisfactory solution, when the "odd" situation arises (i.e., the person's birth date is unknown). It would make no sense if, by convention, we never included a person's birth date (even when we do know it, for a fact), just because there will be other less "cut and dry" situations (where a person's birth date is unknown or uncertain). In other words, we shouldn't throw out the baby with the bath. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:33, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
While it's pretty rare for a person's birthdate to be unknown, it is very common for Supreme Court decisions to have more than just 2 opinions. Kaldari (talk) 18:29, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Point 1: It's not rare at all. Check these Wikipedia pages: [[Category:Date of birth unknown]] and [[Category:Date of death unknown]]. These are, for example, only two categories. And, within those categories, there are many sub-categories. And there are, literally, thousands of entries/articles in all of these categories and sub-categories. So, it is not "common", but certainly not "rare". As I said, these Wikipedia articles number in the thousands (or, at the very least, in the hundreds). By contrast, the U.S. Supreme Court issues – what – 20 or 30 cases a year. And, obviously, not all of those 20 or 30 have ambiguous/hard-to-quantify counts. Point 2: Regardless of how common or rare it is, you didn't address my main point. What is the argument for excluding the information, when the information is clearly known (i.e., in at least the "clear-cut" cases)? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:53, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The Court hears about 75-80 cases per year. Last year 41% of these were unanimous and another 7% 8-1. Those pose no problem. Where you'll have problems are those few cases with a plurality only. Numerical totals are meaningless in such cases (Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Ass'n is a good example). As you say, that information could simply be excluded in those cases. I think the argument against including the totals is that they're ultimately meaningless. What matters about a case is the holding. I think it's also a good question whether there are reliable sources for such counts. I've certainly seen cases reported different ways, depending on the legal savvy of the journalist (see also Coates v. Cincinnati for another edge case). Mackensen (talk) 20:23, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Numerical totals are "meaningless"? Really? So, you see no difference between a 9-0 case and a 5-4 case? Honestly? And, if meaningless, why do sources make a point of letting us know when it is 9-0 and 5-4, etc.? It's a pretty hard argument to claim that the numerical vote is meaningless. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:23, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Here is a very recent landmark case: Obergefell v. Hodges. The very first line states, quote: "Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. ___ (2015), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held in a 5–4 decision that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." So, if your claim is that the numerical vote is meaningless, why would it be included in the lead (yes, the lead) of a landmark case? It was not some tangential information buried deep within the article. And: If I were to delete that (meaningless) 5-4 notation at that article, what do you think the other editors would do and say? Honestly, what do you think would be the general reaction? And why would such be the general reaction? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:27, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The recent decision in Johnson v. United States (2015) is a good illustration of why the vote is meaningless even when we have clear majorities, and the wide gulf that can exist between the reasoning of majority and concurring opinions. The judgment, that the lower court should be reversed and remanded, had eight justices in support. But that eight included a six-justice majority that ruled a federal statutory provision unconstitutional, and two concurring justices who completely disagreed with that ruling and would have decided the case just through statutory interpretation. Isolating the judgment vote would completely paper over that point, and the narrower point that the eight justices agreed on (to reverse the lower court's upholding of the petitioner's criminal sentence as determined by the statutory provision) is itself of no import to readers. postdlf (talk) 22:20, 28 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Completely missing my point. Why are you using as an example a case that is convoluted with many twist and turns and numerical permutations? I will repeat my question (which I thought was rather clear): What is the argument for excluding the information, when the information is clearly known (i.e., in at least the "clear-cut" cases)? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:30, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
See below. And that case wasn't even that convoluted, and that's the point. There was a clear six-justice majority opinion and a clear judgment to reverse supported by eight justices. A majority opinion, two opinions concurring in the judgment (one brief and perfunctory), and a dissent are also relatively simple. And even with such a simple case, the vote count in the abstract isn't significant or clear. If you want to see convoluted, look at McConnell v. FEC. postdlf (talk) 18:44, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. But, still missing my point. You just stated: "the vote count in the abstract isn't significant or clear". I am referring to cases where the exact opposite occurs, i.e., the vote count is clear. Can we focus on my question and not the many permutations that will clearly arise in Supreme Court decisions? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:20, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That's why I started my comment with "see below", to refer to the lower comment I added with the same edit starting with "The argument for not having the vote count as a standard infobox parameter..." postdlf (talk) 21:20, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Basically echoing what others have said, you're correct that in many cases it would be fairly straightforward to have a "score." But in many more cases, the numbers would likely be misleading and inappropriate for inclusion in the infobox. In the most pathological cases, you can have Justices only concurring with particular paragraphs from the majority or plurality opinion. Translating fractured opinions to integers is rough work. As is translating "Justice So-and-so took no part in the consideration or decision of this case." You'd likely end up overloading small integers in a way that would be confusing to the reader and require additional clarification.

What we're doing currently in the infobox is a more direct approach: we explicitly list how each Justice voted, noting with parentheticals if, for example, the concurrence was only for a particular portion. This system is not perfect, but it allows readers to more accurately assess what happened in a case for themselves, I think. If it's 9–0, we say unanimous in the infobox. If it's 5–4, you can pretty easily glean that from glancing at how the opinions broke down.

Your idea is certainly worthy of consideration and discussion, but I'm not sure about adding this type of score functionality, even as an optional template parameter. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:07, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

If a score is "meaningless", then we should exclude the "unanimous" notations, correct? And, believe me, when the holding is convoluted, people don't read all the twists and turns of who concurred with whose dissent and who dissented in part and concurred in part. It's mental gymnastics and no one bothers. An Infobox is supposed to give quick, easy information at the snap-of-your-fingers. For example, a score. Which is what the general public cares about. Only legal scholars and academics care about all those twists and turns when the holding gets complex. The average reader (non-legal scholar, non-academic) does not care about all that. And, most likely, doesn't even understand it. But, they do understand – and look for – a score (if one is available). We should be catering to the general reader, not the esoteric legal scholar, especially in an Infobox. And, again ... What is the argument for excluding the information, when the information is clearly known (i.e., in at least the "clear-cut" cases)? It is directly analogous to my "missing birth dates" examples above. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:35, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
"If a score is "meaningless", then we should exclude the "unanimous" notations, correct?" No, because who joined what opinion is clearly stated by the Court in every case, so whether a majority opinion was unanimous is an objective, easily verifiable fact. The argument for not having the vote count as a standard infobox parameter is that it's of minimal utility to give an abstract number in the simplest cases because it will be easily gleaned from the list of who joined what, and that is outweighed by the hardship and confusion such a number would cause in the more complicated cases, many of which cannot be reducible to a simple numerical vote. We already know you disagree with that. postdlf (talk) 18:44, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Then, why do articles themselves report a numerical vote count? And I will go back to my question above (as of now, still unanswered). Which is this. Here is a very recent landmark case: Obergefell v. Hodges. The very first line states, quote: "Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. ___ (2015), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held in a 5–4 decision that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." So, if your claim is that the numerical vote is meaningless, why would it be included in the lead (yes, the lead) of a landmark case? It was not some tangential information buried deep within the article. And: If I were to delete that (meaningless) 5-4 notation at that article, what do you think the other editors would do and say? Honestly, what do you think would be the general reaction? And why would such be the general reaction? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:26, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
In fact, rather than leaving this as a hypothetical question, I am going to do just that (remove the "meaningless" 5-4 vote from that landmark case article). And see what happens. Not hypothetically, but actually. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:29, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Whether it's ever appropriate to include a vote count in article text is a different question from whether it should be "a standard infobox parameter", as I specified I was commenting on, and which is what we're discussing here on this infobox template talk page. Making it an infobox parameter standardizes it as included information, which case-by-case decisions by editors on each article do not. And the vote count stated in article text is always be given in the context of an explanatory sentence (i.e., what did the court vote 5-4 to do?) which right away makes it more valuable than an infobox parameter stating the count in the abstract. And apart from it simply not mattering here what individual articles do or don't do, given that you don't actually want vote counts to be removed from article text, I wouldn't recommend removing it to try to make a WP:POINT. postdlf (talk) 21:20, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
We will agree to disagree. An Infobox, all the more, is supposed to give a summary, quick snapshot of an article. It's beyond me why such a simple, common sense thing has become such an "issue". Oops, I just figured it out – common sense. We certainly can't have any of that around here, now, can we? Better to have 8 billion bureaucratic obstacles to prevent/impede the most basic information possible. We forget that we are serving the general readers; who – again – are not lawyers and legal experts. If anything, all that minutiae (about who dissented and concurred, etc., etc., etc.) should not be in the quick summary, snapshot Infobox. As far as my "trying to make a point", you misinterpret my motives. Perhaps you are correct and the votes are meaningless. So, in good faith, I removed that info from the other article. I suspect other editors will disagree. We'll see. Thanks. Sorry I even bothered to come to this page. What a joke. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:33, 29 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I think a discussion about this issue is certainly worth having, as I said previously. If others agree with your view, I have no doubt that they'll chime in here. As it stands, a number of editors have expressed polite disagreement with your proposal, so at this time I don't think there's consensus for a change to the template. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:29, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly. And I still have not heard one reason – much less, a valid one – for excluding the information (when it is a "clear cut" case). Re-read my analogy above, about missing birth dates. This makes as much sense as that would. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:04, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]
And in the Obergefell v. Hodges case, another editor replaced the "5-4 decision" notation that I had removed. And kept it in the lead. But, geez, I thought that these votes are meaningless? How could that editor be so presumptive to think that mentioning the vote would have any meaning? And, in the lead, no less. I'm baffled. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:08, 30 July 2015 (UTC)[reply]

2016–present composition key not working

See this: Whole Woman's Health v. Cole It says invalid year 2016-present, but the composition key suggests such key exists. Perplexed of what happened. Ueutyi (talk) 09:05, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Composition key"? Anyway, we obviously have no idea who Scalia's successor is going to be or when they might be confirmed, and it's also possible that this decision might be handed down prior to a confirmation with only 8 justices on the Court. So we're really in limbo here with being able to complete that information for this case or any other yet to be decided. I'd question whether there's any point to including an infobox prior to a decision because most fields (not just the Court membership) are going to be blank or incomplete right now. postdlf (talk) 15:32, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, ok....I see what you mean by "composition key" from the instructions for this template. The data for the Court membership comes from Template:Infobox SCOTUS case/courts, and that hasn't been updated yet to reflect any change this year. We likely will need an option for the 8-member Court in between Scalia's death and confirmation of his replacement (maybe 2016i, with "i" for interim? and then the before and after fields would be 2010-2016 and 2016-present assuming a replacement is confirmed this year). I still think we shouldn't be populating any case articles with this though until the Court has actually handed down its opinion in that case. postdlf (talk) 16:01, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I've updated Template:Infobox SCOTUS case/courts and changed all 2010-present parameter values to 2010-2016. A couple of articles about upcoming cases have been updated to specify 2016: Whole Woman's Health v. Cole and United States v. Texas. I'd be interested to see any cases in the encyclopedia which were decided by previous courts which had unfilled vacancies. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:13, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, Reed v. Reed is one example that comes to mind. The case was argued in October 1971 and Decided in November 1971. At that time, the Court only had seven members: Black and Harlan left in September 1971, and they were not replaced by Powell and Rehnquist until January 1972. It looks like the author of that article used the parameter "SCOTUS=1970-1971", and then left a comment in the "NotParticipating" parameter to explain that Black and Harlan were not on the Court anymore. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 21:07, 15 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ick. That's no solution, as "did not participate" is only meaningful for justices who actually belonged to the Court at the time who could have participated. Look instead to how 1969 is handled in Template:Infobox SCOTUS case/courts. postdlf (talk) 02:32, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the "did not participate" parameter should be used for Justices who are actually on the court at the time, and the various rosters for 1969 (see, e.g., Brandenburg v. Ohio) are a good example of how the template should be formatted in this situation. In any event, many thanks to the editors who make this template work; it is an invaluable component of Wikipedia's coverage of SCOTUS cases, and I appreciate your hard work. Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 03:49, 16 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I've long wanted to kill the "SCOTUS" (Court composition) parameter, instead relying on the decision date to show the Court membership at the time, since we know definitively when Justices were appointed or left the Court. The fact that users currently need to look up a key and enter it is kind of ugly and obnoxious and tedious. The fact that we need "solutions" such as having 1969, 1969b, and 1969c somewhat demonstrates the problem, in addition to the ongoing "-present" problems that arise when the Court membership changes. I did some initial work on automating this, but I've never gotten around to finishing it. :-/ --MZMcBride (talk) 22:26, 17 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

In-chambers opinions

I'm interested in writing an article about a notable in chambers opinion. Which parameters should I use to indicate that the case is an in-chambers opinion? I did a search but I couldn't find examples of other in-chambers opinion articles. Thanks in advance for your help! -- Notecardforfree (talk) 18:30, 3 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Subsequent history" position

Evans v. Jordan
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided March 2, 1815
Full case nameEvans v. Jordan and Morehead
Citations13 U.S. 199 (more)
9 Cranch 199, 13 U.S. 199, 3 L.Ed. 704
Case history
PriorCertificate of division from the District of Virginia
SubsequentNone
Holding
A person who copies a patented invention after the patent has expired, but before it is restored by a private law, will be liable for infringement damages for any use of the invention that continues after the patent is restored.
Court membership
Chief Justice
John Marshall
Associate Justices
Bushrod Washington · William Johnson
H. Brockholst Livingston · Thomas Todd
Gabriel Duvall · Joseph Story
Laws applied
Patent Act of 1800

"Subsequent history" under the "Holding" looks really weird to me. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:47, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Looking at it again, I agree. Thanks for changing it back. Wugapodes [thɔk] [kantʃɻɪbz] 16:52, 30 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Cwn11 recently made this edit to Texas v. Johnson and I think it is an improvement we might want to incorporate into the template. It would serve as useful navigation in case someone wanted to learn more about particular justices, especially since it's not common for every justice to be mentioned/linked in the prose of an article. Do others think this would be a good change? Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 06:23, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Wugapodes. We've generally resisted doing this because the "Court membership" section directly above the "Case opinions" section in the infobox has links to every member of the Court at the time of the decision. Personally, I think the linked edit should be undone. The edit adds unnecessary and inconsistent links and it inserts a bunch of unused template parameters such as "JoinDissent2" that really don't need to be there. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:27, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
I have to agree with MZMcBride on this one. Because the names are already linked earlier in the infobox, it doesn't really make sense to link them a second time. Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 19:26, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Ah, you're right, I misread the diff when I looked at it; I thought the edit linked the court membership part, not the join dissent part. Realizing that now, I agree with you both on this. Glad I asked before making the change. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 20:41, 30 November 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox not working on mobile?

Is it just me, or does this template not display the court membership on mobile view? Compare Katz v. United States with its mobile version for instance. --bender235 (talk) 04:57, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Hi bender235. Yes, this is phabricator:T124168#2295956. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:19, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
Oh, I see. Thanks for letting me know. --bender235 (talk) 21:08, 18 December 2016 (UTC)[reply]
This is now worked around. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:46, 15 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Neil Gorsuch

Can somebody add a composition key for the new justice please? ∼∼∼∼ Eric0928Talk 03:03, 12 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

We really, really, really should switch the template to use an automated system based on court membership at the time of the decision. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:36, 12 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]
MZMcBride, that's a very good idea. I don't have technical expertise to implement this change, but I am in full support. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 06:11, 13 April 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Argued by

Question from a newbie --

When I use Infobox United States District Court case I have the opportunity to record and display counsel for plaintiff and defendant.

When I use Infobox SCOTUS case There is no field for counsel for petitioner and respondent or at least who made oral arguments, nor can I add one (that I know of). In every case since Samuel Sloan argued pro se in 1978, the petitioners have been represented. How do I fit them in the infobox? Thanks in advance Rhadow (talk) 23:42, 23 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Rhadow. This discussion from 2006 is relevant: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases/Archive 2#Infobox - add attorneys. Nothing has really changed since then. It's easy enough to add these optional fields to this template, but I'm not sure there's consensus to do so. Which SCOTUS case(s) are you looking at where this would be useful?
("Easy" in this context meaning adding a field to an infobox isn't typically very difficult. This specific request may require a bit more thought since cases can be re-argued, so we'd need to consider how to handle that.) --MZMcBride (talk) 03:05, 25 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Hello MZMcBride -- Thank you. I see now that this matter has been argued passionately already. A decision has been handed down: "If attorneys arguing a case are truly notable ... Of course, this is rare." If I were to observe that oral arguments are important enough for the Court to post recordings and transcripts, I would most assuredly lose an argument from authority, "[Y]ou are not an attorney and you have never been to law school, so how would you know?" I apologize for having asked the question. Rhadow (talk) 11:14, 25 July 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Speaking as someone arguing in SCOTUS later this year, I think it's worth including. Oyez certainly does. But that might just be my COI. THF (talk) 08:37, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Per Curiam with concurrence?

Occasionally, a decision is announced per curiam but an individual Justice wants to put in their own 2¢ so they write a concurrence. If you set PerCuriam=Yes then no other decisions parameters seem to be populated. Is this correct? I suppose you could set Majority=Per Curiam and then list the remaining 8 Justices under JoinMajority= but that seems like a clunky workaround. Thanks Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:03, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Sometimes listing the joining votes may be appropriate when a justice dissents or otherwise makes clear they didn't join the per curiam opinion, as in Buckley v. Valeo. There are also "concurring opinions" (typically they've joined the majority but wanted to expand or clarify something separately) and "opinions concurring in the judgment" (they agree with the outcome but haven't joined the majority opinion because they don't agree with its reasoning), and regardless of how the syllabus styles those sometimes the concurrence itself makes clear whether they join the Court's opinion. postdlf (talk) 22:39, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for the reply but I wasn't asking about that. I just wanted to know how the situation should be handled with the template parameters available. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 22:45, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
TMI? :) I think what I was getting at in a roundabout fashion is that the "clunky workaround" is at least often the best option. postdlf (talk) 22:58, 25 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, I see now. Thanks for the follow-up. ;) Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 00:59, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Eggishorn. I'm not sure I understand the question being asked here. PerCuriam=yes should work just fine with Concurrence=Burger or similar. We do this in Bush v. Gore without issue. If you link to a specific article (or draft article) where you're having trouble, I'd be happy to take a look. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:04, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

@MZMcBride:, well, what do you know? I tried again and it's working now. I had had PerCuriam=yes and Concurrence=Burger previously but wasn't seeing Burger. Maybe I spelled Concurrence wrong? Thanks again. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:14, 26 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
The article is completed, if anyone would like to have a look. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 01:06, 31 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Nice work! I made some tweaks. And, looking briefly at the page history, the issue was indeed that "Concurrence" had been misspelled. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:44, 31 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for both! Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 02:05, 31 October 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Update warning and future-proof it

Minor thing. The warning that tells users that this template is used on ~2,800 is out of date. It's now ~3,100. I suggest changing the wording to "over 3000 articles." That way, it will always be correct and won't really need an update again. Maybe when it surpasses 4000, 5000, etc., but 1000 new articles seems far enough out. lethargilistic (talk) 21:11, 25 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Cool. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:22, 25 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Documenting Recusals under NotParticipating

If you text search the docs for "recusal", you get pointed to a section that seems to imply that you need to write something into the infobox. Probably just outdated, but the important thing is that it does not instruct a user to use the "NotParticipating" field. We should update that section to do that and also update the chart at the bottom to name drop the different reasons a judge may not participate. Recusal, recent appointment, absence, etc. lethargilistic (talk) 21:25, 25 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Add category

I propose categorizing transclusions in Category:United States Supreme Court cases automatically. Kevin (aka L235 · t · c) 05:05, 18 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sync /courts subpage

Hi. Can someone please sync Special:Permalink/852700990 to Template:Infobox SCOTUS case/courts? The changes are removing a bunch of unnecessary spaces and bypassing some redirects (diff). This will help in testing the upcoming version of the subpage. Thank you! --MZMcBride (talk) 19:57, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, done. Killiondude (talk) 22:44, 30 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Year in short description?

Just to make the short description a bit more discriminating and useful, maybe we should include the DecideYear in that template. If the case hasn't been decided, it can be a "Pending" case. lethargilistic (talk) 04:56, 31 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Kennedy still in OT2018 infobox

There needs to be a 2018b that excludes him, as he will not be sitting in the OT2018 cases. -- 72.83.2.18 (talk) 23:32, 21 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Nah, we're going to kill that awful court composition key altogether instead. We're real close. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:34, 22 August 2018 (UTC)[reply]
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