Template talk:Infobox US Supreme Court case/Archive 2

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Archive 1 Archive 2 Archive 3 Archive 4

The ndash

The en dash is mandated by MOS:DASH to indicate a date range. However, breaks the display of what justices were on the court at the time of the case.

  • ---------- with the hyphen:

Court membership

Chief Justice
   John Marshall
Associate Justices
   William Cushing · William Paterson
   Samuel Chase · Bushrod Washington
   Alfred Moore

  • ---------- with the en dash:

Court membership

Chief Justice
Associate Justices

I don't know how to fix it myself, so would request that |SCOTUSYEAR-YEAR be adjusted to be tolerant of the endash as well as the hyphen by someone who knows. Thanks, --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 18:07, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Template parameter values don't fall within the remit of the MoS. I don't think the additional code complexity is worth adding en dash support. If someone else does, it's not very difficult to add. --MZMcBride (talk) 22:59, 24 January 2012 (UTC)
I'm just making an observation based on this complaint. If it isn't a problem, then perhaps people should not complain when such a change happens. I understand the change in the edit subject to the complaint was made using semi-automated means, and deleterious effects of such replacements aren't always obvious when pressing the save button. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 04:48, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Fair enough. The "en dash in the parameter value" issue has come up once or twice before. I think since it's more code than article text, it makes sense to use the common "-" instead of "–". I guess ideally both cases would work, but given the extra code that's needed currently to achieve that, I've never seen the benefit outweigh the cost. Semi-automated or automated text replacement is always dangerous and full of edge cases. If someone is futzing with template parameters willy-nilly, I can't imagine what they're doing to the rest of the page text. That's simply bad user behavior, in my opinion. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:59, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Now my contributions are characterized as "futzing with template parameters willy-nilly"? I have fixed hyphens in date ranges in thousands of cases involving template parameters, without a problem until now. In all of those thousands of cases up to now, a template parameter that called for a date range simply caused the date range to be displayed in an infobox, and in many cases, there are both dashed and hyphenated date ranges in an infobox, looking mighty sloppy. There is no way to tell that this parameter needs to have a nonstandard format just by looking at it. You can't expect every editor who comes across it to study the code of the template or to compare several articles where it is used to see what kind of values are usually provided. If you had a comment "< !-- Must use a hyphen, not an en dash -- >" following the value, I wouldn't have changed it, nor would the other experienced editors who have fallen into the same trap. If you would like to add the comment to the several thousand articles that use this template, go ahead, but it might be more work than changing the template to handle the en dash. Remaining defiant about the shortcomings of the template and then insulting editors who are working hard to improve Wikipedia is not the answer, though. Chris the speller yack 15:37, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
Simmer down. Your contributions aren't being characterized as anything. I said that if someone is futzing with template parameter values without regard for the possible breakage that can ensue, they're also likely screwing up many other parts of the article. That happens to be quite true.
You're free to go around fixing dashes to your heart's desire. I just looked through some of your contributions and they look great. That said, anything that's code (as opposed to article text) is very dangerous to mess with. If you change [[Category:Foo bar-baz]] to [[Category:Foo bar–baz]] or you change [[File:Hello-there.jpg]] to [[File:Hello—there.jpg]], you'll cause breakage. Same with normal links, if there's no redirect. There are a lot of edge cases with both automated and semi-automated text replacement. The scripts you're using and the manual review catch most of them, but things still slip through. I'm not really blaming anyone. As I said, this has come up for others, even without the use of any automated or semi-automated tools. But I will stand by the principle that it's very dangerous work to do these kinds of replacements, particularly if the changes affect article code instead of just article text. There are undoubtedly countless other edge cases that can be hit.
I have no desire to add a comment to this template parameter. I see no reason to, as the parameter almost never changes (unless someone comes along with a script ;-).
Regarding a "nonstandard format," that's kind of laughable. The hyphen has been used in code (and in article text) for much, much longer than the en dash. If either is "nonstandard," it is unquestionably the en dash. If you've ever done any kind of programming, you'd know that "-" is regularly used while "–" is not.
If you'd like to change the template to accept en dashes in addition to hyphens, I've already said (repeatedly) that I have no objection. I'm just of the view that the extra code to achieve such compatibility isn't worth the (extremely marginal) benefit. --MZMcBride (talk) 16:53, 25 January 2012 (UTC)
I've added a comment for now to the documentation. It's a work-around that's better than nothing, and some way short of a solution because there are already thousands of such templates in place without the comment. We'll see how it goes from here. --Ohconfucius ¡digame! 09:12, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
After debugging a failed attempt to cut and paste a year value, I've reverted the modification to the documentation again. Please keep the two in sync, folks. I don't care what you do, but don't make the documentation wrong. --j⚛e deckertalk 18:17, 21 February 2013 (UTC)

I was giving this a bit more thought last night. Honestly, I'm not even sure the "SCOTUS" template parameter is needed. If you have the decision date, you can figure out which Court was seated at the time and automagically output the appropriate Court membership without the need for user input. That would resolve this issue in a much better way. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:45, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps now that LUA is enabled.... ? --j⚛e deckertalk 18:15, 21 February 2013 (UTC)
It's "Lua", not "LUA", by the way. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:27, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

D'oh.  :) --j⚛e deckertalk 02:05, 14 March 2013 (UTC)
{{Infobox SCOTUS case/courts}} now accepts either hyphen- or endash-separated years. I added calls to {{Module:String}} (wrapper for the Lua string functions). A test page with all 42 cases on it took 7 (+/- 1) seconds to render using the old template and 8 (+/- 1) seconds using the new one, which seems acceptable. I'll mod the docs, too. BTW, note that the document says 1811-1812 and 2010-current are valid cases, but these currently produce errors, which I'll fix also. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 21:25, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
The doc is now updated to reflect the change in {{Infobox SCOTUS case/courts}} to allow endash or hyphen.
I added the 1811-1812 case*** (CJ John Marshall) to the Chief Justice section of {{Infobox SCOTUS case/courts}}, since it was missing (though the Associate Justice section was present).
I removed the 1938b case from the doc, since it was unsupported, and there is no equivalent template at Category:United States Supreme Court composition templates.
To be investigated/fixed (by someone please):
—[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:16, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for your work on this. As I said in January 2012, I believe we ultimately want to get rid of the "SCOTUS" template parameter altogether, and instead populate the "Court membership" infobox section based on the decision date. This will be far superior to the current system, as it will allow for auto-population and it will reduce the overall complexity of adding an infobox to an article.
I don't believe adding additional cases at this point makes any sense. If you'd like to work on deprecating/killing the "SCOTUS" parameter, I'd be happy to point you in the right direction. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:27, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
It seems like this might better wait for wikidata to become available for other types of data so that the court compositions can be maintained in one place with start and end dates that can be compared against, no? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 23:39, 26 February 2013 (UTC)
I don't think waiting on Wikidata is sensible, no. It may make life better one day, but I think we should continue to operate as though it doesn't exist until it does. User:MZMcBride/Sandbox has the work I was doing, if you have any interest in helping out. --MZMcBride (talk) 23:46, 26 February 2013 (UTC)

Ties between cases

|Superseded=, |Overruled=, and |Overturned= were incorrectly documented, based on how they were implemented. Someone changed |Overturned= to |Overturned previous case= to correctly match the parameter name as implemented, but still had the usage backwards. I fixed the doc to match the current implementation, but it raises some issues.

Currently:

  • |Superseded= is used as though it were named "Superseded by", since it is placed on the article for the earlier case. There is no equivalent to be placed on the later case.
  • |Overruled= is used as though it were named "Overruled by", since it is placed on the article for the earlier case. There is no equivalent to be placed on the later case.
  • |Overturned previous case= is used as though it were named "Overturns", since it is placed on the article for the later case (unlike the other two parameters). There is no equivalent to be placed on the earlier case.

This assumes that "Superseded", "Overruled", and "Overturned" have different legal definitions. If so, it seems that:

  • |Superseded= should be renamed |Superseded by=.
  • We should create and implement a |Supersedes= to be placed on the case article referred to by |Superseded by=.
  • |Overruled= should be renamed |Overruled by=.
  • We should create and implement a |Overrules= to be placed on the case article referred to by |Overruled by=.
  • |Overturned previous case= should be renamed |Overturns=.
  • We should create and implement a |Overturned by= to be placed on the case article referred to by |Overturns=.

Depending on usage and/or availability of a bot to auto-edit (probably discouraged?), we might have to maintain the old param names as well, but at least they would make sense going forward.

Comments? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 02:22, 6 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi. Parameter names for this template use CamelCase. I don't see a compelling reason to rename any parameters. What issue are you trying to solve? --MZMcBride (talk) 03:01, 6 July 2013 (UTC)


There are two issues being discussed as I see it:
1. You want inverse property relationships. This is implemented in the Web Ontology Language (OWL) as an "inverseOf" property of properties.
2. You want the properties to be renamed to be clearer, as described.
2.1. You want the renaming to use spaces.
I think they should be discussed separately. As for (1), yes, this is a requirement for this template to be used in WikiData, so I think this should be implemented. This is simply the next phase in this template's evolution. Unlike what you propose, all articles do not need all data, but this is a design choice. From a practical perspective, it is too much work (and probably TMI) to require (or even recommend) each article contain all inverse properties. (I forget the name, but I think the Vocabulary of Interlinked Datasets (VoID) vocab can describe whether a dataset provides inverse properties that have an implied relationship. IOW its a very design-oriented decision. We can definitely talk about though.) As for (2), yes, with the caveat that (2.1) is, as MZMcBride, less desirable than using camelCase. Unlike MZMcBride, I do not think ignoring/rejecting your entire argument is a proper response to the lack of camelCase. For the sake of your proposal, please fix it (make it camelCase) and re-propose. Otherwise your proposal will be rejected by many because of the lack of camelCase. I think you should also consider making it clearer that you want inverse property relationships. (Which is the norm in Big Data.) Int21h (talk) 03:57, 6 July 2013 (UTC)
When a decision is "superseded", it means the law itself changed from what the Court had ruled upon, whether that law was a federal statute or the Constitution itself. Chisholm v. Georgia is a classic example of this, as the Eleventh Amendment was adopted basically to invalidate that decision, and more recently, the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act superseded Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co..

When a decision is "overturned" or "overruled", it means it was invalidated by another, subsequent Court decision, because the Court itself simply changed its mind and rejected its earlier precedent.

postdlf (talk) 00:14, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Thanks for the responses.
@MZM: The issue I started out trying to solve was that the doc was wrong. It took a while to figure out exactly why, and how it was supposed to be, because the parameter purpose is self-inconsistent (two "forward" links and one "reverse") and the naming is inconsistent with their purpose. One of the joys of evolving from a world of hex addresses and then one-letter variable names was the ability to use descriptive names. We should use them properly to avoid people misunderstanding their purpose when they (commonly) won't RTFM.
@Int21h: The issue of (the uncommon use of) CamelCase or not was not what I was trying to change (and I didn't mention it). I simply am asking to make the variable names descriptive. As far as the term "inverse property relationships", while it might be used in a "formal" context, I've been a database guy "in the trenches" for decades, and I've never heard the term – the words are generic enough to mean pretty much anything, depending on context. I used terminology that I thought was descriptive and hopefully understandable by WP editors.
As far as whether to include both the "forward" (e.g. |SupersededBy=) and "inverse" (e.g. |Supersedes=) links, people don't have to use them if they don't want to (like everything else), but I think both add value. Naturally, once we can put the relationships in a table, we can render them as needed. Depending on the source, the editor may have access to only one or the other, and should be able to insert the data based on that.
Anywho, the re-worded proposal is:
0. Because of the ambiguity in the existing parameter naming, I propose that a sample audit be done to see if the parameters are actually being used as (now) documented before doing anything else.
1a. |Superseded= should be renamed |SupersededBy=.
1b. We should create and implement a |Supersedes= to be placed on the case article referred to by |SupersededBy=.
2a. |Overruled= should be renamed |OverruledBy=.
2b. We should create and implement a |Overrules= to be placed on the case article referred to by |OverruledBy=.
3a. |Overturned previous case= should be renamed |Overturns=.
3b. We should create and implement a |OverturnedBy= to be placed on the case article referred to by |Overturns=.
I do not, at this time, propose to remove either all "forward" or all "reverse" links, since it would be somewhat involved to create the opposing link when only the one to be removed exists.
How's that? —[AlanM1(talk)]— 00:48, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Support This should be done, the previous parameters declared obsolete, and documentation updated. It is clearer than current parameters. It provides forward and reverse versions (inverse versions) of "superseded", "overruled", and "overturned" properties, giving the editor more leeway, and will ease integration of data to and from WikiData as well when the time comes. I think the documentation should reflect that such inverse properties are optional (as if your proposal read "..that may be placed.." instead of "..to be placed on the case article referred to"), but this is a minor issue. (That much info in the infobox may be desirable, it may be TMI. IDK. Do whatever, we can debate it afterwards.) Int21h (talk) 02:49, 7 July 2013 (UTC) Int21h (talk) 03:42, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
Int21h's follow-up comment was helpful to understanding what it is you're after here. I sometimes have difficulty following your posts.
This proposal seems fine to me. Just follow existing conventions in the template and try to keep the docs updated. I'm not sure how you plan to measure/evaluate usage of current template parameters, but I imagine that'll be annoying. A tracking category or a parser of some kind, I guess. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:54, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
I'll try to keep the annoyance to a minimum . I need to first see how many articles we're talking about, and whether there is a bot available already to do simple param renaming. To check for accuracy, I need to see if there's a legal reference available that I can build a cross-reference table from and then parse the WP articles and compare against it. —[AlanM1(talk)]— 20:37, 7 July 2013 (UTC)
The standard practice, AFAIK, is to depreciate the old parameters first: remove them from the documentation but leave them as valid parameters in the code. Conversion of depreciated parameters should be a secondary concern. Int21h (talk) 23:49, 7 July 2013 (UTC)

Year missing from citation in infobox

It appears that citation in infobox doesn't include year. (Or else cases that I've looked at are missing relevant parameter and I can't figure out what it is.) For example, citation for Brown v. Board of Education should be "347 U.S. 483 (1954)" but instead is just "347 U.S. 483" (Compare this with result for ussc template which does include year: 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

Was not including year a deliberate choice or is this a mistake that should be corrected?

Sjsilverman (talk) 15:09, 2 October 2013 (UTC)

That's deliberate, because as you can see in the Brown article, the completed "citation" field provides citations to all reporters, and it would be silly to keep repeating the year for each of those. I suppose we could add the year in at the end, as would be done in parallel citations in formal legal writing: Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483, 74 S. Ct. 686 (1954). But that seems unnecessary when the decision date is directly above it. postdlf (talk) 15:25, 2 October 2013 (UTC)
^ What he said. --MZMcBride (talk) 00:21, 3 October 2013 (UTC)

litigants2, etc.

So is the purpose of the litigants2 and similar fields to list the additional litigants that are party to other cases that were consolidated before the Supreme Court? For instance, in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., the Court also heard American Iron & Steel Institute v. NRDC and Ruckelshaus v. NRDC. I had tried to use the template this way for the latter two cases that were part of Chevron, but it just looked like absolute hell (hard to tell where one line ends and another begins since NRDC's name is so long). Adding the second and third docket numbers looks fine though. Is there something else we could do here, or is listing the additional litigants for a case like Chevron not really necessary? —/Mendaliv/2¢/Δ's/ 09:15, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Hi Mendaliv. Looking at its alleged usage, you might be correct that the Litigants2 parameter isn't needed. I vaguely recall seeing some U.S. Supreme Court cases where the case was titled more than once, but maybe I'm misremembering. When a case has been consolidated, I sometimes use the FullName field to list the consolidated cases, separated by semicolons. I guess separating with line breaks would also be simple enough, if you'd prefer that. (My gut feeling right now is that the Special:Search results are a bit incomplete [only about a half-dozen results] for a parameter that I could've sworn was used a bit more often... hmmm.) --MZMcBride (talk) 01:14, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Concurring in the judgment

Hello, I'm wondering if this infobox allows any way to display justices who concurred in the judgment but didn't write separately or join any of the opinions. I believe this is a rare occurrence, but it happened in, for example, Winston v. Lee, where Justices Rehnquist and Blackmun concurred in the judgment without joining any of the opinions. It's not the end of the world if their names just don't appear linked with any of the opinions in the infobox, which is currently the case, but would it make sense to add a field just for this rare case? - Sfeldman (talk) 20:53, 24 September 2014 (UTC)

Hi Sfeldman. This is an issue I've struggled with as well. In some cases, a Justice joined only in the judgment. At this point, I think listing the Justice as having concurred, but including a parenthetical next to the Justice's name that clarifies that the concurrence was only for a specific part, is most appropriate. But maybe there are better ways to handle this not-uncommon scenario. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:17, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Changes to the template

This template is used on more than 500 Supreme Court case articles, and it was developed using consensus for what would look and work best. If you feel changes should be made to the template, do so only with consensus among WikiProject SCOTUS Cases members and others after first discussing the changes on this page. Personally, I like the way the template currently looks, and don't see any need to change it to use class="infobox". Thanks. --MZMcBride 05:23, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I agree.--Chaser T 12:06, 11 November 2006 (UTC)
It is the de facto standard class for infoboxes. Using inline style should be avoided when we have a class for the job (WP:ACCESS), for consistency of appearance (the monobook skin doesn't use black borders, and all image boxes/TOCs/navboxes uses this style), accessibility (we have a hard coded white background, if a visually impaired user set their skin to white on black the box would be unreadable) and all the other benefits of separating style from content. ed g2s • talk 10:15, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
ed g2s: It's funny, I was about to archive this talk page, but I tripped across this discussion from a "lifetime" ago and it made me smile. For the record, Ed was right and using class="infobox" was the right move. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 01:32, 29 July 2015 (UTC)

Related cases

Why doesn't this template and {{Infobox COA case}} have a related cases parameter like {{Infobox United States District Court case}} for mentioning companion cases? One pair of cases where it would be used is Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. -Rrius (talk) 10:45, 18 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi Rrius. There's no parameter because nobody has added one, I suppose. We typically use the "See also" section to list related cases, I think. Maybe an optional template parameter called RelatedCases would be reasonable. Are there additional examples beyond Roe where this template parameter would be useful currently? --MZMcBride (talk) 01:24, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
Actually, looking at Obergefell v. Hodges, it seems we already have a Related parameter. :-) --MZMcBride (talk) 03:20, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

Question about the numerical court decision

Why does this Infobox not have the most basic information for a Supreme Court decision, which is the numerical vote? For example, a decision might be 5-4 or 8-1 or what-have-you. Isn't this the most basic info that readers will want to know about the decision? Why is it missing? And is there a way to add it in? (Or, is it in there somewhere, and I am somehow not seeing it?) Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:47, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

I think the question immediately above yours adds some color to illustrate why it isn't necessarily always so cut and dry. There isn't always a discrete way to "count" situations where a justice might concur in part and dissent in another part. Mine is by no means a complete answer to your question, so I'll step aside and let others chime in.... —grolltech(talk) 11:32, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. Perhaps what you say is true. But, in cases where it is indeed "cut and dry", then there is no reason to not place the numerical vote (5-4 or 8-1 or 9-0 or what-have-you). Here is an analogy. In Wikipedia biographies, we list the date on which a person was born. Sometimes, we do not know the date, so we leave that "field" blank. That is a satisfactory solution, when the "odd" situation arises (i.e., the person's birth date is unknown). It would make no sense if, by convention, we never included a person's birth date (even when we do know it, for a fact), just because there will be other less "cut and dry" situations (where a person's birth date is unknown or uncertain). In other words, we shouldn't throw out the baby with the bath. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 15:33, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
While it's pretty rare for a person's birthdate to be unknown, it is very common for Supreme Court decisions to have more than just 2 opinions. Kaldari (talk) 18:29, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
Point 1: It's not rare at all. Check these Wikipedia pages: [[Category:Date of birth unknown]] and [[Category:Date of death unknown]]. These are, for example, only two categories. And, within those categories, there are many sub-categories. And there are, literally, thousands of entries/articles in all of these categories and sub-categories. So, it is not "common", but certainly not "rare". As I said, these Wikipedia articles number in the thousands (or, at the very least, in the hundreds). By contrast, the U.S. Supreme Court issues – what – 20 or 30 cases a year. And, obviously, not all of those 20 or 30 have ambiguous/hard-to-quantify counts. Point 2: Regardless of how common or rare it is, you didn't address my main point. What is the argument for excluding the information, when the information is clearly known (i.e., in at least the "clear-cut" cases)? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 19:53, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
The Court hears about 75-80 cases per year. Last year 41% of these were unanimous and another 7% 8-1. Those pose no problem. Where you'll have problems are those few cases with a plurality only. Numerical totals are meaningless in such cases (Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Ass'n is a good example). As you say, that information could simply be excluded in those cases. I think the argument against including the totals is that they're ultimately meaningless. What matters about a case is the holding. I think it's also a good question whether there are reliable sources for such counts. I've certainly seen cases reported different ways, depending on the legal savvy of the journalist (see also Coates v. Cincinnati for another edge case). Mackensen (talk) 20:23, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
Numerical totals are "meaningless"? Really? So, you see no difference between a 9-0 case and a 5-4 case? Honestly? And, if meaningless, why do sources make a point of letting us know when it is 9-0 and 5-4, etc.? It's a pretty hard argument to claim that the numerical vote is meaningless. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:23, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
Here is a very recent landmark case: Obergefell v. Hodges. The very first line states, quote: "Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. ___ (2015), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held in a 5–4 decision that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." So, if your claim is that the numerical vote is meaningless, why would it be included in the lead (yes, the lead) of a landmark case? It was not some tangential information buried deep within the article. And: If I were to delete that (meaningless) 5-4 notation at that article, what do you think the other editors would do and say? Honestly, what do you think would be the general reaction? And why would such be the general reaction? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:27, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
The recent decision in Johnson v. United States (2015) is a good illustration of why the vote is meaningless even when we have clear majorities, and the wide gulf that can exist between the reasoning of majority and concurring opinions. The judgment, that the lower court should be reversed and remanded, had eight justices in support. But that eight included a six-justice majority that ruled a federal statutory provision unconstitutional, and two concurring justices who completely disagreed with that ruling and would have decided the case just through statutory interpretation. Isolating the judgment vote would completely paper over that point, and the narrower point that the eight justices agreed on (to reverse the lower court's upholding of the petitioner's criminal sentence as determined by the statutory provision) is itself of no import to readers. postdlf (talk) 22:20, 28 July 2015 (UTC)
Completely missing my point. Why are you using as an example a case that is convoluted with many twist and turns and numerical permutations? I will repeat my question (which I thought was rather clear): What is the argument for excluding the information, when the information is clearly known (i.e., in at least the "clear-cut" cases)? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:30, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
See below. And that case wasn't even that convoluted, and that's the point. There was a clear six-justice majority opinion and a clear judgment to reverse supported by eight justices. A majority opinion, two opinions concurring in the judgment (one brief and perfunctory), and a dissent are also relatively simple. And even with such a simple case, the vote count in the abstract isn't significant or clear. If you want to see convoluted, look at McConnell v. FEC. postdlf (talk) 18:44, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
Thanks. But, still missing my point. You just stated: "the vote count in the abstract isn't significant or clear". I am referring to cases where the exact opposite occurs, i.e., the vote count is clear. Can we focus on my question and not the many permutations that will clearly arise in Supreme Court decisions? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:20, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
That's why I started my comment with "see below", to refer to the lower comment I added with the same edit starting with "The argument for not having the vote count as a standard infobox parameter..." postdlf (talk) 21:20, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
Basically echoing what others have said, you're correct that in many cases it would be fairly straightforward to have a "score." But in many more cases, the numbers would likely be misleading and inappropriate for inclusion in the infobox. In the most pathological cases, you can have Justices only concurring with particular paragraphs from the majority or plurality opinion. Translating fractured opinions to integers is rough work. As is translating "Justice So-and-so took no part in the consideration or decision of this case." You'd likely end up overloading small integers in a way that would be confusing to the reader and require additional clarification.

What we're doing currently in the infobox is a more direct approach: we explicitly list how each Justice voted, noting with parentheticals if, for example, the concurrence was only for a particular portion. This system is not perfect, but it allows readers to more accurately assess what happened in a case for themselves, I think. If it's 9–0, we say unanimous in the infobox. If it's 5–4, you can pretty easily glean that from glancing at how the opinions broke down.

Your idea is certainly worthy of consideration and discussion, but I'm not sure about adding this type of score functionality, even as an optional template parameter.

--MZMcBride (talk) 01:07, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
If a score is "meaningless", then we should exclude the "unanimous" notations, correct? And, believe me, when the holding is convoluted, people don't read all the twists and turns of who concurred with whose dissent and who dissented in part and concurred in part. It's mental gymnastics and no one bothers. An Infobox is supposed to give quick, easy information at the snap-of-your-fingers. For example, a score. Which is what the general public cares about. Only legal scholars and academics care about all those twists and turns when the holding gets complex. The average reader (non-legal scholar, non-academic) does not care about all that. And, most likely, doesn't even understand it. But, they do understand – and look for – a score (if one is available). We should be catering to the general reader, not the esoteric legal scholar, especially in an Infobox. And, again ... What is the argument for excluding the information, when the information is clearly known (i.e., in at least the "clear-cut" cases)? It is directly analogous to my "missing birth dates" examples above. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:35, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
"If a score is "meaningless", then we should exclude the "unanimous" notations, correct?" No, because who joined what opinion is clearly stated by the Court in every case, so whether a majority opinion was unanimous is an objective, easily verifiable fact. The argument for not having the vote count as a standard infobox parameter is that it's of minimal utility to give an abstract number in the simplest cases because it will be easily gleaned from the list of who joined what, and that is outweighed by the hardship and confusion such a number would cause in the more complicated cases, many of which cannot be reducible to a simple numerical vote. We already know you disagree with that. postdlf (talk) 18:44, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
Then, why do articles themselves report a numerical vote count? And I will go back to my question above (as of now, still unanswered). Which is this. Here is a very recent landmark case: Obergefell v. Hodges. The very first line states, quote: "Obergefell v. Hodges, 576 U.S. ___ (2015), is a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held in a 5–4 decision that the fundamental right to marry is guaranteed to same-sex couples by both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution." So, if your claim is that the numerical vote is meaningless, why would it be included in the lead (yes, the lead) of a landmark case? It was not some tangential information buried deep within the article. And: If I were to delete that (meaningless) 5-4 notation at that article, what do you think the other editors would do and say? Honestly, what do you think would be the general reaction? And why would such be the general reaction? Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:26, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
In fact, rather than leaving this as a hypothetical question, I am going to do just that (remove the "meaningless" 5-4 vote from that landmark case article). And see what happens. Not hypothetically, but actually. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 20:29, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
Whether it's ever appropriate to include a vote count in article text is a different question from whether it should be "a standard infobox parameter", as I specified I was commenting on, and which is what we're discussing here on this infobox template talk page. Making it an infobox parameter standardizes it as included information, which case-by-case decisions by editors on each article do not. And the vote count stated in article text is always be given in the context of an explanatory sentence (i.e., what did the court vote 5-4 to do?) which right away makes it more valuable than an infobox parameter stating the count in the abstract. And apart from it simply not mattering here what individual articles do or don't do, given that you don't actually want vote counts to be removed from article text, I wouldn't recommend removing it to try to make a WP:POINT. postdlf (talk) 21:20, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
We will agree to disagree. An Infobox, all the more, is supposed to give a summary, quick snapshot of an article. It's beyond me why such a simple, common sense thing has become such an "issue". Oops, I just figured it out – common sense. We certainly can't have any of that around here, now, can we? Better to have 8 billion bureaucratic obstacles to prevent/impede the most basic information possible. We forget that we are serving the general readers; who – again – are not lawyers and legal experts. If anything, all that minutiae (about who dissented and concurred, etc., etc., etc.) should not be in the quick summary, snapshot Infobox. As far as my "trying to make a point", you misinterpret my motives. Perhaps you are correct and the votes are meaningless. So, in good faith, I removed that info from the other article. I suspect other editors will disagree. We'll see. Thanks. Sorry I even bothered to come to this page. What a joke. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 21:33, 29 July 2015 (UTC)
I think a discussion about this issue is certainly worth having, as I said previously. If others agree with your view, I have no doubt that they'll chime in here. As it stands, a number of editors have expressed polite disagreement with your proposal, so at this time I don't think there's consensus for a change to the template. Cheers. --MZMcBride (talk) 03:29, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
Exactly. And I still have not heard one reason – much less, a valid one – for excluding the information (when it is a "clear cut" case). Re-read my analogy above, about missing birth dates. This makes as much sense as that would. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:04, 30 July 2015 (UTC)
And in the Obergefell v. Hodges case, another editor replaced the "5-4 decision" notation that I had removed. And kept it in the lead. But, geez, I thought that these votes are meaningless? How could that editor be so presumptive to think that mentioning the vote would have any meaning? And, in the lead, no less. I'm baffled. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 05:08, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

2016–present composition key not working

See this: Whole Woman's Health v. Cole It says invalid year 2016-present, but the composition key suggests such key exists. Perplexed of what happened. Ueutyi (talk) 09:05, 15 February 2016 (UTC)

"Composition key"? Anyway, we obviously have no idea who Scalia's successor is going to be or when they might be confirmed, and it's also possible that this decision might be handed down prior to a confirmation with only 8 justices on the Court. So we're really in limbo here with being able to complete that information for this case or any other yet to be decided. I'd question whether there's any point to including an infobox prior to a decision because most fields (not just the Court membership) are going to be blank or incomplete right now. postdlf (talk) 15:32, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Oh, ok....I see what you mean by "composition key" from the instructions for this template. The data for the Court membership comes from Template:Infobox SCOTUS case/courts, and that hasn't been updated yet to reflect any change this year. We likely will need an option for the 8-member Court in between Scalia's death and confirmation of his replacement (maybe 2016i, with "i" for interim? and then the before and after fields would be 2010-2016 and 2016-present assuming a replacement is confirmed this year). I still think we shouldn't be populating any case articles with this though until the Court has actually handed down its opinion in that case. postdlf (talk) 16:01, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
I've updated Template:Infobox SCOTUS case/courts and changed all 2010-present parameter values to 2010-2016. A couple of articles about upcoming cases have been updated to specify 2016: Whole Woman's Health v. Cole and United States v. Texas. I'd be interested to see any cases in the encyclopedia which were decided by previous courts which had unfilled vacancies. Wbm1058 (talk) 20:13, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Actually, Reed v. Reed is one example that comes to mind. The case was argued in October 1971 and Decided in November 1971. At that time, the Court only had seven members: Black and Harlan left in September 1971, and they were not replaced by Powell and Rehnquist until January 1972. It looks like the author of that article used the parameter "SCOTUS=1970-1971", and then left a comment in the "NotParticipating" parameter to explain that Black and Harlan were not on the Court anymore. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 21:07, 15 February 2016 (UTC)
Ick. That's no solution, as "did not participate" is only meaningful for justices who actually belonged to the Court at the time who could have participated. Look instead to how 1969 is handled in Template:Infobox SCOTUS case/courts. postdlf (talk) 02:32, 16 February 2016 (UTC)
I agree that the "did not participate" parameter should be used for Justices who are actually on the court at the time, and the various rosters for 1969 (see, e.g., Brandenburg v. Ohio) are a good example of how the template should be formatted in this situation. In any event, many thanks to the editors who make this template work; it is an invaluable component of Wikipedia's coverage of SCOTUS cases, and I appreciate your hard work. Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 03:49, 16 February 2016 (UTC)

I've long wanted to kill the "SCOTUS" (Court composition) parameter, instead relying on the decision date to show the Court membership at the time, since we know definitively when Justices were appointed or left the Court. The fact that users currently need to look up a key and enter it is kind of ugly and obnoxious and tedious. The fact that we need "solutions" such as having 1969, 1969b, and 1969c somewhat demonstrates the problem, in addition to the ongoing "-present" problems that arise when the Court membership changes. I did some initial work on automating this, but I've never gotten around to finishing it. :-/ --MZMcBride (talk) 22:26, 17 February 2016 (UTC)

In-chambers opinions

I'm interested in writing an article about a notable in chambers opinion. Which parameters should I use to indicate that the case is an in-chambers opinion? I did a search but I couldn't find examples of other in-chambers opinion articles. Thanks in advance for your help! -- Notecardforfree (talk) 18:30, 3 April 2016 (UTC)

"Subsequent history" position

Evans v. Jordan
Supreme Court of the United States
Decided March 2, 1815
Full case nameEvans v. Jordan and Morehead
Citations13 U.S. 199 (more)
9 Cranch 199, 13 U.S. 199, 3 L.Ed. 704
Case history
PriorCertificate of division from the District of Virginia
SubsequentNone
Holding
A person who copies a patented invention after the patent has expired, but before it is restored by a private law, will be liable for infringement damages for any use of the invention that continues after the patent is restored.
Court membership
Chief Justice
John Marshall
Associate Justices
Bushrod Washington · William Johnson
H. Brockholst Livingston · Thomas Todd
Gabriel Duvall · Joseph Story
Laws applied
Patent Act of 1800

"Subsequent history" under the "Holding" looks really weird to me. --MZMcBride (talk) 05:47, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Looking at it again, I agree. Thanks for changing it back. Wugapodes [thɔk] [kantʃɻɪbz] 16:52, 30 May 2016 (UTC)

Link justices to their pages automatically in the template

Cwn11 recently made this edit to Texas v. Johnson and I think it is an improvement we might want to incorporate into the template. It would serve as useful navigation in case someone wanted to learn more about particular justices, especially since it's not common for every justice to be mentioned/linked in the prose of an article. Do others think this would be a good change? Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 06:23, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Hi Wugapodes. We've generally resisted doing this because the "Court membership" section directly above the "Case opinions" section in the infobox has links to every member of the Court at the time of the decision. Personally, I think the linked edit should be undone. The edit adds unnecessary and inconsistent links and it inserts a bunch of unused template parameters such as "JoinDissent2" that really don't need to be there. --MZMcBride (talk) 06:27, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
I have to agree with MZMcBride on this one. Because the names are already linked earlier in the infobox, it doesn't really make sense to link them a second time. Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 19:26, 30 November 2016 (UTC)
Ah, you're right, I misread the diff when I looked at it; I thought the edit linked the court membership part, not the join dissent part. Realizing that now, I agree with you both on this. Glad I asked before making the change. Wugapodes [thɔk] [ˈkan.ˌʧɻɪbz] 20:41, 30 November 2016 (UTC)

Neil Gorsuch

Can somebody add a composition key for the new justice please? ∼∼∼∼ Eric0928Talk 03:03, 12 April 2017 (UTC)

We really, really, really should switch the template to use an automated system based on court membership at the time of the decision. --MZMcBride (talk) 04:36, 12 April 2017 (UTC)
MZMcBride, that's a very good idea. I don't have technical expertise to implement this change, but I am in full support. -- Notecardforfree (talk) 06:11, 13 April 2017 (UTC)

Infobox not working on mobile?

Is it just me, or does this template not display the court membership on mobile view? Compare Katz v. United States with its mobile version for instance. --bender235 (talk) 04:57, 18 December 2016 (UTC)

Hi bender235. Yes, this is phabricator:T124168#2295956. --MZMcBride (talk) 20:19, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
Oh, I see. Thanks for letting me know. --bender235 (talk) 21:08, 18 December 2016 (UTC)
This is now worked around. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:46, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

Per Curiam with concurrence?

Occasionally, a decision is announced per curiam but an individual Justice wants to put in their own 2¢ so they write a concurrence. If you set PerCuriam=Yes then no other decisions parameters seem to be populated. Is this correct? I suppose you could set Majority=Per Curiam and then list the remaining 8 Justices under JoinMajority= but that seems like a clunky workaround. Thanks Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 21:03, 25 October 2017 (UTC)

Sometimes listing the joining votes may be appropriate when a justice dissents or otherwise makes clear they didn't join the per curiam opinion, as in Buckley v. Valeo. There are also "concurring opinions" (typically they've joined the majority but wanted to expand or clarify something separately) and "opinions concurring in the judgment" (they agree with the outcome but haven't joined the majority opinion because they don't agree with its reasoning), and regardless of how the syllabus styles those sometimes the concurrence itself makes clear whether they join the Court's opinion. postdlf (talk) 22:39, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
Thank you for the reply but I wasn't asking about that. I just wanted to know how the situation should be handled with the template parameters available. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 22:45, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
TMI? :) I think what I was getting at in a roundabout fashion is that the "clunky workaround" is at least often the best option. postdlf (talk) 22:58, 25 October 2017 (UTC)
Ok, I see now. Thanks for the follow-up. ;) Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 00:59, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

Hi Eggishorn. I'm not sure I understand the question being asked here. PerCuriam=yes should work just fine with Concurrence=Burger or similar. We do this in Bush v. Gore without issue. If you link to a specific article (or draft article) where you're having trouble, I'd be happy to take a look. --MZMcBride (talk) 19:04, 26 October 2017 (UTC)

@MZMcBride:, well, what do you know? I tried again and it's working now. I had had PerCuriam=yes and Concurrence=Burger previously but wasn't seeing Burger. Maybe I spelled Concurrence wrong? Thanks again. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 19:14, 26 October 2017 (UTC)
The article is completed, if anyone would like to have a look. Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 01:06, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
Nice work! I made some tweaks. And, looking briefly at the page history, the issue was indeed that "Concurrence" had been misspelled. --MZMcBride (talk) 01:44, 31 October 2017 (UTC)
Thanks for both! Eggishorn (talk) (contrib) 02:05, 31 October 2017 (UTC)

Update warning and future-proof it

Minor thing. The warning that tells users that this template is used on ~2,800 is out of date. It's now ~3,100. I suggest changing the wording to "over 3000 articles." That way, it will always be correct and won't really need an update again. Maybe when it surpasses 4000, 5000, etc., but 1000 new articles seems far enough out. lethargilistic (talk) 21:11, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Cool. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:22, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

Documenting Recusals under NotParticipating

If you text search the docs for "recusal", you get pointed to a section that seems to imply that you need to write something into the infobox. Probably just outdated, but the important thing is that it does not instruct a user to use the "NotParticipating" field. We should update that section to do that and also update the chart at the bottom to name drop the different reasons a judge may not participate. Recusal, recent appointment, absence, etc. lethargilistic (talk) 21:25, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

  • I just remembered the /doc is a different page. My bad. I'll handle these, haha. lethargilistic (talk) 22:05, 25 March 2018 (UTC)
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