Skip to Main Content

Research Guides

FIVS 415/435 Science & Law / Case Studies in Problem Solving (Spring 2024)

Court Cases

Locating cases by CITATION, by PARTY NAMES, by KEY WORDS or by SECONDARY SOURCES.


COURT CASES

Disputes between two parties decided by a court. Past court decisions are called precedents. The collection of past judicial decisions are called case law (different from other laws made by legislatures. Those laws are called acts and put in codes. When deciding a future case, a judge is bound to follow similar precedents. There are three court levels: Trial Court, Appellate Court and Supreme Court. The upper level court can reverse the decisions by a lower court. Only the decisions from the appellate level and up were reported in law reporters. The decisions made by the court of a jurisdiction is mandatory authority for its jurisdiction but persuasive authority in the court of another jurisdiction.

LEGAL ARGUMENTS

Court decisions or laws are the primary sources for your legal arguments. Use Westlaw, Nexis Uni to find them. The secondary sources like legal encyclopedias, law reviews, journal articles or media may contain references to the needed cases. American Law Reports is an excellent secondary source to find case laws and the selected cases. Both Westlaw and Nexis Uni also allow you to find secondary sources. HeinOnline is a frequently used secondary sources database. When reading a case, pay attention to its facts, and headnotes which point to the specific applicable laws, or the logic or reasoning behind a holding or judgement. Avoid citing those overturned or bad-law cases marked with a red flag. Use KeyCite (Westlaw) or Shepardizing (Lexis) to check a case's precedents.

SEARCHING STRATEGIES

Use secondary sources to gather the facts & the cited cases > Use Westlaw / Lexis Uni to find the needed cases > Read the cases to find the laws & legal issues based on which the court decisions were made.


Finding Court Cases

WestLaw

By citation - 539 P.2d 204 | - 495 U.S. 508 (1990) [Note: Red flag; overruled]
By Party Names - Williams v. Illinois
By Key Words
  - saliva /s deoxyribonucleic acid
  - ((hair /5 female or women or girl) and (kill* or homicide))
  - (microscop! /s hair) /p (comparison analysis)
  - (blood and dna) and SY, DI(contamination)
KeyCite - Located at the top of each case document, the tool allows you to look up a case's history, treatment, citations or other facts.
Secondary Sources
  - Secondary Sources > American Law Reports > enter a search term hair to find the related cases, laws, rules, scope, background, examinations may be used, proper subject for expert testimony, important cases in jurisdictions, admissibility or weight as evidence, its references in West's Key Number Digest, in other legal encyclopedias, in treatises and practice aids, in law journals and more.
  - Secondary Sources > Law Reviews and Journals,> "digital forensic" and crime
Reading a Case
When you find a case, click on Brief It, which will summarize the facts and rules in an easy-to-read format. The Synopsis provides some background information. The Holdings will show prior rules, reasoning and the new results, rules or decisions on the case. The West Headnotes summarizes the legal issues. You could also use the West Key Number System, a classification of U.S. law that indexes cases into topics and their legal issues, to find the laws where the issues belong.
What a Case Structure Looks like?
https://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/ld.php?content_id=34783306

Nexis Uni

By citation - 567 US 50
By Party Names - Williams v. Illinois
By Key Words
  - dna testing w/7 forensic evidence
  - ((hair w/5 female or women or girl) and (kill* or homicide))
  - atleast10("scientific evidence" w/15 testimony)
Shepardize a Document - Open a case document > Click on Shepardize this document link to see the analysis.
Secondary Sources -  "digital forensic" and crime

HeinOnline

• contains both current and historical legal resources ranging from law reviews, to regulatory documents such as the Federal Register and the Code of Federal Regulations, the United States Code, federal and state statutes, treaties, foreign and international law collections, an American Law Institute Library including Restatements of the Law, a United Nations law collection, state attorney general opinions, federal agency decisions and more.

Google Scholar

• Select [Case Law] and then do a search
- fingerprint biometric identifiers > Federal courts