Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Schmerber v. California/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was promoted by Graham Beards via FACBot (talk) 06:35, 31 October 2015 [1].

Schmerber v. California[edit]

Nominator(s): Notecardforfree (talk) 17:06, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

This article is about one of the most important United States Supreme Court cases of the twentieth century. In Schmerber, the Court established that police cannot forcibly intrude into the human body (i.e. by taking blood samples, taking tissue samples, or forcing people to undergo surgery) without a warrant. The Court also established that physical evidence taken from the body is not "testimonial" and the prosecution's use of such evidence does not violate the Fifth Amendment's protections against forced self-incrimination. I have used the Bluebook citation style for this article, which is the prefered citation style for legal scholarship. Although many editors dislike Bluebook, it is a perfectly acceptible citation style, per MOS:LAW and WP:CITEVAR (it has also been used by other Featured Articles, such as United States v. Kagama and United States v. Washington). Thank you in advance for everyone who reviews this! Notecardforfree (talk) 17:06, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Atsme[edit]

Nicely written. Will comment further after I do a little copyediting. Atsme📞📧 21:57, 6 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Per FA criteria:

  • prose is of a professional standard;
  • comprehensive: it neglects no major facts or details and places the subject in context;
  • well-researched: it is a thorough and representative survey of the relevant literature. Claims are verifiable against high-quality reliable sources and are supported by inline citations where appropriate;
  • neutral: it presents views fairly and without bias; and
  • stable: it is not subject to ongoing edit wars and its content does not change significantly from day to day, except in response to the featured article process.
  • It follows the style guidelines, including the provision of—
    • a lead: a concise lead section that summarizes the topic and prepares the reader for the detail in the subsequent sections;
    • appropriate structure: a system of hierarchical section headings and a substantial but not overwhelming table of contents;
    • Bluebook ref acceptable
    • Media. It has images and other media, where appropriate, with succinct captions, and acceptable copyright status. Images included follow the image use policy. Non-free images or media must satisfy the criteria for inclusion of non-free content and be labeled accordingly.
  • Length. It stays focused on the main topic without going into unnecessary detail and uses summary style.
  • Support Atsme📞📧 23:58, 7 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    • Comments from Cirt[edit]

    Comments by — Cirt (talk) 18:31, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    #NOTE: Please respond, below these comments, and not interspersed throughout, thanks!
    1. 3rd paragraph in lede = "many legal scholars" ... "some even" ... "some scholars" = could we have some examples of direct attribution of the most prominent of these scholars in the lede, instead of the vague wording, please?
    2. Arrest and prosecution of Armando Schmerber = suggest just title sect as Arrest and prosecution
    3. History of warrantless searches of the human body = we know this is Background, as it's in the background sect, and comes in order before the case, itself. Suggest just title it as Warrantless searches of the human body, without "history of".
    4. History of the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule = same here, just title sect as "Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule.
    5. Arguments before the Supreme Court of the United States - just title sect as Arguments before the Court. We know from the lede sect it is the Supreme Court of the United States.
    6. Justice Harlan's concurrance = should be spelled "concurrence".
    7. Re-evaluating the privilege against self-incrimination in South Dakota v. Neville = suggest sect title of simpler: South Dakota v. Neville and privilege against self-incrimination
    8. Re-evaluating warrantless blood tests in Missouri v. McNeely = suggest sect title simpler of: Missouri v. McNeely and warantless blood test = we know already from the parent sect called Subsequent developments that the "re-evaluating" is implied by the name of the parent sect title.
    9. Analysis and commentary = suggest just call sect "Analysis" or "Commentary". Pick one.
    10. Implications for other bodily intrusions = suggest just sect title of Impact.
    11. Analysis and commentary = sect starts off with "Scholars have" and ... "Others have described". Again, vague wording seems a bit of a place for prose improvement with increased specificity, instead, please.
    12. Immediate reaction = again with "Some analysts" and "Other commentators".
    13. "Other commentator's also observed " = wrong use of possessive apostrophe on the word commentator here.
    14. "However, some commentators" = again, vague wording.
    15. "Some legal scholars " = which ones?
    16. "One scholar even wrote" = which one? Why was this one important? What publication?
    17. "Others have expressed concern " = who expressed concern? Why does their opinion in particular hold weight? Was it a particular journal of note?
    18. Notes sect = please have an in-line cite at the end to back up Note 2.
    19. References sect = "The citations in this Article are written in Bluebook style." = is it common in Wikipedia Featured Articles to have this sort of statement in the References sect?
    20. NOTE: Please respond, below these comments, and not interspersed throughout, thanks!

    Overall, it's generally quite good. Thank you for the Quality improvement effort on this article which relates to topics of both the law and human rights. — Cirt (talk) 10:03, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Hi Cirt, thanks so much for your thoughtful and thorough review of the article! Your comments and suggestions were incredibly helpful. Here's what I have done to improve the article based on your suggestions (the numbers below refer to the numbered suggestions you listed above):
    2. Third paragraph in lead: When I first wrote that paragraph, I strongly considered adding direct attributions, but I feared it would disrupt the flow of text too much. After re-reading this section, I now see that the wording was a bit vague. I added direct attributions for the authors who think the court’s decision may be used to justify mind reading, but let me know if you think I should include other direct attributions in that paragraph.
    3. Arrest and prosecution of Armando Schmerber: I changed the title of the section per your recommendation.
    4. History of warrantless searches of the human body: I changed the title of the section per your recommendation.
    5. History of the Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule: I changed the title of the section per your recommendation.
    6. Arguments before the Supreme Court of the United States: I’m inclined to keep this title as-is. There were also arguments in the CA superior court and the appellate department of the superior court, so the specificity may help readers understand that the section is not about arguments in a lower court. If you feel strongly about this, I will go ahead and change the title.
    7. Justice Harlan's concurrance: I fixed the typo. Good catch!
    8. Re-evaluating the privilege against self-incrimination in South Dakota v. Neville: I changed the title per your suggestion.
    9. Re-evaluating warrantless blood tests in Missouri v. McNeely: I changed the title to "Missouri v. McNeely and the exigent circumstances exception for warrantless blood tests" to be a little more specific about the issue in McNeely. Let me know if you think this still needs to be changed.
    10. Analysis and commentary: I changed the title to “Analysis” per your suggestion.
    11. Implications for other bodily intrusions: I changed the title per your suggestion.
    12, 14-18. References to “scholars” in Analysis section: I added direct attributions throughout the analysis section per your suggestions, and I also included additional details about who the scholars/commentators were as well as information about where they published their commentary. Let me know if you think anything still needs to be modified.
    13. Other commentator's also observed: I fixed the typo. Good catch!
    19. Notes section: I added a citation to ‘’Duroncelay’’ at the end of the footnote 2.
    20. References section: At one point, another editor added the {{BBREF}} template in the references section of the article to stop bots from modifying the Bluebook style references. However, the template changed the formatting to the column width in the references section, so a second editor removed the template and left the explanatory note at the top of the references section. I'm inclined to leave the explanatory note because I have had several bad experiences with editors who disrupt Bluebook citations. If you feel strongly about removing the language at the top of the references section, I will take it out.
    Please let me know if you think there is anything else that needs to be fixed. Thanks again for taking the time to look at this! Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 17:15, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    Thanks for the responsiveness and polite and professional demeanor during FAC, most appreciated. — Cirt (talk) 19:26, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    1. Arguments before the Supreme Court of the United States = change to just US Supreme Court oral argument
    2. South Dakota v. Neville and the privilege against self incrimination = change to just South Dakota v. Neville and self-incrimination
    3. Missouri v. McNeely and the exigent circumstances exception for warrantless blood tests = change to just Missouri v. McNeely and blood tests

    Never in my time at Wikipedia on any articles, GA or FA, have I seen such long subsection title headers, before !!! — Cirt (talk) 19:26, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Unfortunately, it is a bad habit of many in the law to write unnecessarily long section titles. I often err on the side of writing more rather than less, but I understand that wordy titles may not be the most helpful for readers. Consequently, I made the following changes, per your recommendations:
    1. I changed the title to "Arguments before the Court," per your original suggestion. The the section also discusses the parties' briefs, so the section is about more than just oral arguments.
    2. I changed the title to "South Dakota v. Neville and self-incrimination".
    3. I changed the title to "Missouri v. McNeely and the exigent circumstances exception".
    Let me know if there is anything else you would like me to change. Thanks again for your help with this! Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 20:00, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]
    • Support. My thanks to the FA Nominator for being so polite and responsive to my comments, above. Thank you for your efforts to improve this article about a fascinating intersection between topics of the law and WP:Human rights. Good luck, — Cirt (talk) 18:31, 12 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Comments from Minor4th[edit]

    A couple of minor points/suggestions:

    1. I would like to see a picture of Justice Brennan, who delivered the majority opinion. As far as I know, all FA legal articles contain a picture of the justice delivering the majority opinion.

    2. In the lede, where you say "warrantless blood sample taken in this case was justified under the Fourth Amendment's exigent circumstances exception" - the paragraph would be more cohesive if you briefly describe what the circumstances were that were considered exigent.

    3. Your See also section contains links to cases that you have also wikilinked and linked in the body and references. I think you should remove those from the See also section.

    4. I love your excellent use of Bluebook citation style and explanatory footnotes.

    Good job.

    Support. Minor4th 21:24, 9 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Thanks so much for your support Minor4th! Per your suggestions, I made the following modifications to the article:
    1. I added a picture of Justice Brennan next to the discussion of the majority's opinion
    2. In the lead, I explained what the exigent circumstance was in this case
    3. I cleaned up the redundant links in the see also section
    I truly appreciate your willingness to offer your feedback for this FA review! Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 17:49, 11 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    Images are appropriately licensed. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:00, 17 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

    The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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