U.S. Supreme Court Library
HeinOnline Specialist
Additional Resources
From the Court itself, a history of and current makeup of the United States Supreme Court.
Most Recently Published Slip Opinions
Access slip opinions to recent decisions from the Court from its official website. A “slip” opinion consists of the majority or principal opinion, any concurring or dissenting opinions written by the Justices, and a prefatory syllabus prepared by the Reporter’s Office that summarizes the decision.
Oyez (pronounced OH-yay)—a free law project from Cornell’s Legal Information Institute (LII), Justia, and Chicago-Kent College of Law—is a multimedia archive devoted to making the Supreme Court of the United States accessible to everyone. It is the most complete and authoritative source for all of the Court’s audio since the installation of a recording system in October 1955. Oyez offers transcript-synchronized and searchable audio, plain-English case summaries, illustrated decision information, and full-text Supreme Court opinions (through Justia). Oyez also provides detailed information on every justice throughout the Court’s history and offers a panoramic tour of the Supreme Court building, including the chambers of several justices.
SCOTUSblog is devoted to covering the U.S. Supreme Court comprehensively, without bias and according to the highest journalistic and legal ethical standards. It generally reports on every merits case before the court at least three times: before argument, after argument and after the decision. The blog notes all of the paid cert petitions that raise a legal question it believes may interest the justices; the blog gives additional coverage to particularly significant petitions. For the merits cases and the petitions covered, access is provided to all the briefs.
Supreme Court: Legal Information Institute (LII)
This page from the Legal Information Institute, a project of Cornell Law School, provides summaries, opinions, and dissents filed for recent Supreme Court cases.
This research guide from Georgetown Law Library provides background information and suggests resources for further research on the history of the U.S. Supreme Court, the justices of the Court, and the Court's practice and decisions.
U.S. Supreme Court Records and Briefs (Library of Congress)
This research guide from the Law Library of Congress provides guidance on how to how to find briefs, oral argument transcripts, and docket information for cases considered by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS).
United States Reports (Official Opinions of the U.S. Supreme Court)
This digital collection from the Library of Congress contains volumes 1-570, covering the years 1754-2012. This collection will continue to grow as the Supreme Court digitizes more volumes of the U.S. Reports. The United States Reports is a series of bound case reporters that are the official reports of decisions for the Supreme Court of the United States.
United States Supreme Court Cases Legal Information Institute Indexing
The indexing information presented here for the United Supreme Court Cases is provided courtesy of the Legal Information Institute (LII) of Cornell University Law School and is part of their United States Supreme Court Collection . Indexes are provided by Topic and Author for cases from 1990 to present and also for over 600 of the Court's most important decisions from the founding of the court to present.
List of Landmark Court Decisions in the United States
This article from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, provides an overview of landmark decisions of the Court organized by the primary issue at stake in the case, such as individual rights, criminal law, executive power, and more.
This page from the United States Courts, the official webpage for the federal courts, provides annotations of landmark cases, including citation, ruling, and summary, with links to related cases.
Top U.S. Supreme Court Decisions Fast Facts
This article from CNN takes a look at some of the most important cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court since 1789.
Twenty-Five Landmark Cases in Supreme Court History
This article from ConstitutionFacts.com provides a brief synopsis of twenty-five landmark cases decided by the U.S. Supreme Court since 1803.
ConstitutionFacts.com, a project of Oak Hill Publishing, the largest non-partisan publisher of pocket constitution books in the world, provides interactive information on the U.S. Constitution, Declaration of Independence, the Founding Fathers, the Supreme Court, and more.