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The Findlaw database of Supreme Court decisions covers all decisions since 1893.  It is available both on and off campus. If you need a decision from before 1893, use LEXIS-NEXIS Academic Universe (covers all decisions) or LII Hermes (most significant decisions).

• From the Library home page (http://lib.westfield.ma.edu/index.html) click on QuickLinks to Databases
• Click on  Supreme Court Decisions link to access Findlaw  (http://www.findlaw.com/casecode/supreme.html)
• Ignore the search box near the top of the Findlaw screen and scroll down to the search boxes labeled Citation Search, Party Name Search, and Full-text Search.

IF YOU KNOW THE EXACT CITATION TO U.S. REPORTS

• Fill in the blanks under Citation Search with the numbers before and after U.S.
Example: 381 U.S. 479
• Note: This database cannot find citations to the Supreme Court Reporter (abbreviated S.Ct.). Use LEXIS-NEXIS if you have only this citation.
• Click on  Get it.
• Click on the title of your case to access the full text.

• Fill in the blank under Party Name Search with any word(s) in the names of one or both parties, in any order.
• Click on the Search button.
• Click on the title of your case to access the full text.

Note: Findlaw is not designed for topical searches. A search retrieves all decisions that contain the word or phrase even once, usually including many irrelevant ones. This search system is most effective for searching for uncommon words that are specific to a decision.

To search for major Supreme Court decisions by topic, see Topical Searches on LII Hermes, below. You can also use LEXIS-NEXIS  to search for terms in Supreme Court decisions and rank by relevance.

To search for words in the text:

• Type your search term(s) in the Full-Text Search box.
• To search for a phrase, enclose it in quotation marks.
• To search for cases containing two or more words or phrases in the same page, link them with and (Example: bruises and "physical coercion").
• Click on the Search button.
• Click on the name of a case in the list.
• Use the Back button in the upper left of the screen to return to the list of cases.

The LII Hermes database provides an index by broad topic to 610 of the Supreme Court's most significant decisions since the beginning.

• Click on the Location box in Netscape and type the address: http://supct.law.cornell.edu/supct/cases/topic.htm
• Click on a topic from the list.
• Click on the + sign to the left of one of the names of the cases to access the syllabus (summary) of the case.
• At the end of the syllabus, click on Opinions to access a list of opinions.
• Click on the + sign to access the full text of the opinion.
• Click on the arrow at the lower right to move to the next page.

The major parts of the cases published on the Web are:

• Syllabus: a summary prepared by the court.
• Opinion of the Court: the majority opinion, and the only legally binding part.
• Concurring Opinions: additional opinions of individual members of the majority, if any.
• Dissent: the opinion of the minority, if any.

SAVING TO A DISKETTE

• Insert your IBM-formatted diskette into the floppy drive.
• Open the File menu and select Save as.
• To change the file name, click on the File name box and type the new name. Otherwise, it will be named getcase.pl
• Give the filename an extension of .txt (plain text so it can be read by any word processor).
• Click on OK.
• If you found a case on LII Hermes, each page must be saved separately with a different file name.

• To print, open the File menu and select Print.
• Click on OK.
• If you found a case on LII Hermes, each page must be printed separately.

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