Idiosyncratic Questions

[Greg Sisk]

What a good question!  It is an obvious question as well, although
seldom asked.  When I was writing my Litigation With the Federal
Government casebook (shameless plug:  Foundation 2000), I must
confess that it never occurred to me that there were any rules or
guidelines, other than my own professional judgment, about how to
edit the cases included, beyond basic honesty and fairness in
allowing the opinion to speak for itself.  Given that I tend to be
frustrated with heavily edited cases in other casebooks (and often
end up giving my students supplements that include excised portions
of casebook opinions that I think important), my general approach was
to edit lightly, deleting only redundant material and footnotes, as
well as portions of opinions which addressed issues other than those
for which I selected to include the case in the casebook (and even
there generally including a bracketed description of the court's
ruling on that other issue).  Of course, the longer the opinion
(particularly Nineteenth Century Supreme Court opinions), the more
editing was necessary to prevent a single case from dominating
students' reading (and in recognition of limited attention span).


>      In trying to develop my own conlaw materials for this Fall the
>following questions have arisen:
>
>       1. I assume that casebooks contained 'edited' cases even as early as
>Langdell.  If not, when did the practice of editing books begin?. Although I
>understand the practical need for editing cases in teaching law, I suspect
>that an important difference exists between editing a case and assigning
>selected pages from, say, Hume's Treatise. Does anyone know of any canonical
>(or even merely important or interesting) authorities on the appropriate
>(jurisprudentially--politically or judicially--legitimate)  ways to edit a
>case?
>
>       2.  When did "the opinion of the court" come into existence in
>contradistinction to Justices merely stating their opinions serially.  Did
>(could) Congress have any role in this change?
>
>       I'd be grateful for any help with these idiosyncratic questions and
>glad to take responses off-line.  Thanks.
>
>Bobby
>
>Robert Justin Lipkin
>Professor and H. Albert Young
>Fellow in Constitutional Law
>
>Widener University School of Law
>Delaware

--
Gregory Sisk
Richard M. & Anita Calkins
   Distinguished Professor
Drake University Law School
2507 University Avenue
Des Moines, Iowa  50311-4505
515-271-4184
greg.sisk at drake.edu
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