arcane question

[Andrew Koppelman]

It ought to be easy enough to resolve this with a day of research in the 
Supreme Court library.  They ought to have the old briefs, and should be 
able to tell, by examining a sample a few dozen cases, whether there is a 
close correspondence between the briefs and the reported description.  For 
that matter, a phone call to the head librarian at the Supreme Court might 
resolve the question, since that librarian is presumably familiar with the 
unique aspects of the collection.


At 10:41 AM 6/30/2005, Fred Shapiro wrote:
>On Tue, 28 Jun 2005, Scott Gerber wrote:
>
> > Earl Maltz wrote:
> >
> > >  The reports of old decisions in S. Ct. begin with descriptions of the
> > >arguments made by counsel on both sides.  Does anyone know if the
> > >description refer to written briefs or, instead, to oral arguments?
>
>I ask Morris Cohen, who probably knows more about this kind of thing than
>anyone else, and he says that the description may refer to written briefs
>(which may no longer be extant) or may refer to oral arguments.  Often
>there is no way of telling which it was for a given old case.
>
>Fred Shapiro
>
>
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
>Associate Librarian for Collections and     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
>   Access and Lecturer in Legal Research     Yale University Press,
>Yale Law School                             forthcoming
>e-mail: fred.shapiro at yale.edu               http://quotationdictionary.com
>--------------------------------------------------------------------------
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________________________________________

Andrew Koppelman
Professor of Law and Political Science
Northwestern University School of Law
357 East Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL  60611-3069
(312) 503-8431
mailto:akoppelman at northwestern.edu
________________________________________