How do I cite a U.S. Supreme Court opinion?

Answer

APA defers to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation, a popular citation style to cite legal materials.  Because there is only one U.S. Supreme Court, there is no need to include the name of the court in the citation. 

The format for the Reference list citation is:

Name v. Name, Volume Source Page (Year).

Brown v. Board of Educ., 347 U.S. 483 (1954).


Note: Reference list citations are typed in one of six approved typefaces (Calibri -11 point, Arial-11 point, Lucida Sans Unicode-10 point, Times New Roman-12 point, Georgia-11 point, Computer Modern-10 point), are double spaced, and use the hanging indent if needed.

Matching in-text citations for this example are:

...(Brown v. Board of Educ., 1954).            Parenthetical in-text citation
Brown v. Board of Education (1954), ....     Narrative in-text citation


Consult the Legal Materials page in the APA Guide for more examples of citations for legal resources.

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  • Last Updated Jun 03, 2021
  • Views 14086
  • Answered By Suzanne Schriefer, Librarian

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