An “Opinion of the Court”

Pick a Supreme Court Case from Unit II a. It must contain an “Opinion of the Court” and at least one “Dissent” Read the case carefully. Read the opinion of the court and one dissent. Ignore concurrences or additional dissents. Highlight or note the important passages. There may be much in the case that is technical. Don’t worry about that stuff. Be on the look out for the big statements, especially those that show how the Court is interpreting the part of the Constitution in question. Notice the kind of quotes I picked in the examples I gave you.

3. Chart

a. In an excel document, input the Case information

i. Case name

ii. Case ID (e.g. 347 US 483)

iii. One-paragraph summary of the Facts of the case (in your own words) iv. Constitutional Question (you can get from the opinion or websites like www.oyez.com, www.findlaw.com)

v. One paragraph summary in your own words of the holding. Include the vote count, 9-0, 8-1, 7-2, 6-3, 5-4 and a basic summary of the Court’s answer to the constitutional question.

b. Then your document should have three columns – one for the subject matter or issue, one for the Opinion of the Court and one for any one of the dissents. For this assignment, cut and paste only the most important quotations from the case as has been done in the example I have given. The key is to be able to match up points made in the dissent with points made in the Court’s opinion. It is this upon which you will be graded. You should have at least 10 quotations for the Opinion of the Court and 10 quotations for the dissenters. Again, only include the most decisive quotations. The quotations should not be any longer than three sentences.