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Articles about court cases should properly cite the case and link to the decision. For court case that went on for years and involved reams of documents entered

Articles about court cases should properly cite the case and link to the decision. For court case that went on for years and involved reams of documents entered into evidence, something's probably gonna get lost in the reduction to a couple paragraph summary. Isn't it weird that nobody reads court documents before railing against the outcome? It's not that hard to read the opinion and dissent, identify the judges' perspectives, and follow their arguments. Even if you have no background in constitutional law or relevant statutes, you can pick it up as you go along. Anyways, since I can't find the decision I can't really figure out whether I should complain and do nothing about the court or the law.

socillion 13y ago
Here's the decision: http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/sterling-ruling.pdf http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/sterling-ruling.pdf It's 118 pages, have fun. I found it at http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/07/19/fourth-circuit-guts-national-security-journalis/ http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/07/19/fourth-circuit-guts-nat...
- seliopou 13y ago
  Thanks. The nice thing about court cases is that they're divided nicely into parts that consider different questions before the court. You also get an entire section called "Background" which I hear is useful. But even before you get to the background, just by reading the first page, you get a more nuanced view of what's going on. The decision's split up into seven parts, of which only part I and VI saw unanimous agreement. Judge Gregory dissented for parts II-V, and Judge Diaz wrote his own opinion for part VII, concurring in part and dissenting in part. Also, you can see that in some questions, the lower court's affirmed, in others it was rejected, and some questions were sent back to it. What other nuance can we pull out of this from reading just a few more sentences?

socillion 13y ago

Here's the decision: http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/sterling-ruling.pdf http://legaltimes.typepad.com/files/sterling-ruling.pdf It's 118 pages, have fun. I found it at http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/07/19/fourth-circuit-guts-national-security-journalis/ http://www.emptywheel.net/2013/07/19/fourth-circuit-guts-nat...

seliopou 13y ago
Thanks. The nice thing about court cases is that they're divided nicely into parts that consider different questions before the court. You also get an entire section called "Background" which I hear is useful. But even before you get to the background, just by reading the first page, you get a more nuanced view of what's going on. The decision's split up into seven parts, of which only part I and VI saw unanimous agreement. Judge Gregory dissented for parts II-V, and Judge Diaz wrote his own opinion for part VII, concurring in part and dissenting in part. Also, you can see that in some questions, the lower court's affirmed, in others it was rejected, and some questions were sent back to it. What other nuance can we pull out of this from reading just a few more sentences?