Template:Infobox SCOTUS case/doc

Assistance
If you find yourself confused in how to use this template or need assistance, please feel free to leave comments on the talk page.

Usage
This template aims to standardize U.S. Supreme Court cases. It's a very versatile template that includes features such as: argue dates that are automatically formatted correctly, citations that include a link to the text of the case, and accurate court membership with a much lower chance of error.

For a detailed description of this template's usage, see below. For information about commonly inserted information, refer to this guide. The template is part of WikiProject U.S. Supreme Court cases.

Parameters
Parameter names shown opposite in italics indicate parameters that form external links.

Most parameters in this template are optional. Leaving parameters such as ReargueDate, Concurrence5, or Overruled blank is OK and will not change or alter anything in the template. Parameters such as Majority, JoinMajority, etc. are all optional. Any fields that need to be added can be done so easily – either add the code if you feel comfortable doing so, or contact me and I will add the fields you need.
 * Optional parameters

Argue dates
Most cases will only need to use ArgueDate, ArgueYear, DecideDate, and DecideYear. Only cases that have more than one argue date need to use ArgueDateA and ArgueDateB. ReargueDate and ReargueYear should only be used if there was a reargue date.

USVol and USPage
Cases should be cited using the U.S. Reports volume and page number in the USVol and USPage fields, respectively. If the case does not yet have a page assigned, use "___" (three underscores).

ParallelCitations
The ParallelCitations field is for additional (parallel) citations for the same case (e.g. "111 S. Ct. 1282; 113 L. Ed. 2d 358").

Docket
For newer cases (those decided after 2000 or so), you should enter the Supreme Court docket number in the Docket field (e.g. "06-1234").

Prior history
This field can contain citations to prior decisions in the case, in trial court or lower appellate courts, or prior decisions by the subject court; these should be preceded by a two to four word description of the ruling—this (together with the subsequent history, following) is merely the bare bones procedural history of the case—what happened when at what court. Please use the citation only for the preferred court reporter (not all parallel citations) to reduce length. If unreported (as with most criminal convictions, for example), list the ruling, the court, and the date.

Subsequent history
This field can contain citations to or general descriptions of subsequent decisions by lower courts after a remand or vacation, or by the same court, as in a denial of rehearing, or continuing proceedings in a trial court.

Holding
A very brief (one or two sentence) description of what the central ruling of the case was. This may or may not be fact-specific, depending on how broadly the court's opinion was worded; follow with a short statement of what the specific outcome of the case was.

Court membership
To add the court membership, you need to put in the key from the list below which covers the relevant year in which the court issued the case decision, not heard oral argument. This will automatically fill in the members of the court for the appropriate year(s). The syntax is "yyyy[c][–yyyy]". That is, it takes one of the three forms:
 * "1939" for a single-year composition
 * "1969b" for the rare case of more than one composition within a year
 * "1940–1941" for the usual range of years, which should be separated by an endash per WP:YEAR, but a hyphen is also acceptable.

Court composition key
To view the make-up of each Court, see List of Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States by court composition.

Case opinions
All the written opinions handed down in the case are listed in the following categories of majority, concurrent, etc. Always follow the designations used in the reported decision.

List all justices under these headings only by their last name, as their full names are already given above in the court membership section.

Note: List at the end, after all opinions, if a judge was on the court at the time the decision was rendered, yet did not participate in the case because of a recent appointment, recusal, or other absence. Example: "Kennedy took no part in the consideration or decision of the case".

Majority
The justice who authored the majority opinion.

Joined by
The justices who joined in the majority/plurality opinion. Early cases (18th – mid-19th century) may not list who has joined in the majority—unless they are listed as the author of a separate concurrence or dissent, or as joining such a separate opinion, list them as joining the majority. If the decision was unanimous, simply say that it was joined by a "unanimous court" rather than relisting every judge.

Concurrences, concurrence/dissents, dissents
List all concurrences, followed by concurrence/dissents, followed by dissents. Within each grouping, try to order the opinions by the seniority of the authoring justice, with the chief justice always considered the most senior regardless of actual length of tenure.

Concurrence/dissent
These will usually be labeled in the original opinion as "concurring in part and dissenting in part". Follow these designations, because from the text of the opinion alone it is sometimes difficult to tell concurrences from dissents from partial concurrences/partial dissents.

Laws applied
These are citations to the constitutional and statutory provisions that were the primary basis for the decision only. They do NOT necessarily include all case law, nor every law that happens to be cited in the case or rejected as inapplicable with minimal discussion.

Manual of Style
This is a proposed manual of style. Its contents are based on the infoboxes found in various case articles, but notably the styles used in the three featured-article cases: Dred Scott v. Sandford, Roe v. Wade, and Lawrence v. Texas. This manual attempts to add consistency throughout all of the case articles. This manual's aim is to focus on the style that is currently widely used throughout United States Supreme Court cases. ''It is in no way a final draft, or set in stone. Changes should be made to it, and then implemented in the different articles.''

The manual follows the template's layout. All parameter names are in bold (e.g. Litigants). Cases inside a single set of brackets [ ] are examples where a certain item can be seen "in action."

General notes
Formatting is done automatically. There is no need to use wiki markup (  or ' ) or HTML ( or  ) for most parameters. Exceptions are: Prior, Subsequent, and Overruled.

Litigants
In almost all cases, Litigants will be the same as the name of the article, often also known as the short name of the case found at the top of the printed pages of the case [Dred Scott v. Sandford].

Argue date
Most cases will simply need to use ArgueDate and ArgueYear. If the case was argued over more than one day, ArgueDateA and ArgueDateB can be employed. Unless the argue dates span over more than one month, the month's name should only be used once [Eisenstadt v. Baird]. If a case was reargued, the same style should be used [Champion v. Ames]. Also, the full name of the month should always be used.

Older cases may not list an argue date. Thorough research can generally produce one, but if a date can not be found, leave the parameters blank. Other old cases will have a submitted date; in these instances, use SubmitDate and SubmitYear [Nix v. Hedden].

Decide date
There is only ever one DecideDate and DecideYear.

Full name
The full case name should try to include the first and last names of all parties and whatever other information is included in the full name of the case [Bowers v. Hardwick]. For example, Michael J. Bowers, Attorney General of Georgia v. Michael Hardwick, et al. If that information cannot be found, using a shorter name of the case is permissible.

Any time "et al." is used, there should always be a comma preceding it.

Volume and page
USVol and USPage are the United States Reports volume number and starting page on which the case was reported.

Docket number
Newer cases should use Docket (e.g. "05-184") [Hamdan v. Rumsfeld].

Prior history
Prior is the most lenient field. The information here should be whatever you can gather. Sometimes that will be only a short statement [Immigration and Naturalization Service v. Chadha] or may be more in-depth [Roe v. Wade]. All formatting here must be added by the user. Prior should never end in a period, comma, or semi-colon. An exception can be made if a period is used as part of an abbreviation.

Subsequent history
Subsequent is optional. Newer cases most likely won't have a subsequent history. Older cases may never have gone any further after being decided by the Supreme Court. A simple "None" can be used in this instance. Once again, Subsequent should never end in a period, comma, or semi-colon. An exception can be made if a period is used as part of an abbreviation and all formatting here must be added by the user.

Holding
Holding consists of a few sentences describing the Court's ruling. It should be concise and it should always end in a period.

Court membership
SCOTUS contains the court composition years in which the case was decided [Lawrence v. Texas]. Use the key above and fill in the code for the relevant years during which the case was decided. This will automatically fill in the members of the court for the appropriate year(s). The syntax is "yyyy[c][–yyyy]". That is, it takes one of the three forms:
 * "1939" for a single-year composition
 * "1969b" for the rare case of more than one composition within a year
 * "1940–1941" for the usual range of years, which should be separated by an endash per WP:YEAR, but a hyphen is also acceptable

Superseded and overruled
Superseded may be used when a later case partially changes the ruling in an earlier case. For example, the case of Ring v. Arizona (where it was decided that in a death penalty case heard by a jury, only the jury can impose death) superseded Walton v. Arizona, as it partially overruled the previous case.

Overruled may be used where a later case changes the findings in an earlier one. As noted above in the Ring case, it also overruled Spaziano v. Florida which made a jury's decision whether or not to impose the death penalty to be completely advisory, as a judge in Spaziano could overrule a jury's recommendation for life and impose the death penalty, Ring made the decision by the jury to impose life instead of death as mandatory and does not allow the judge to override the decision and impose death anyway. (The judge can overrule a jury's decision to impose death and impose life instead, however.)

Overturned
If the holding of a case is completely changed by a later case, the original case is said to be overturned. This happened when the finding that Separate But Equal, which was established in the 19th century in Plessy v. Ferguson, was overturned when the Supreme Court discarded this concept in Brown v. Board of Education.

The Supreme Court also overturned a prior case when it announced in Lawrence v. Texas that it had been wrong in deciding the original case of Bowers v. Hardwick, in deciding in that case that Georgia's anti-sodomy law was constitutional (Georgia's own Supreme Court would decide years earlier that the law was unconstitutional under the state constitution in Powell v. Georgia). The Supreme Court decided in Lawrence that the laws making non-commercial consensual sodomy illegal are unconstitutional, and that the decision in Bowers was wrongly decided.

When a case is overturned, the Overturned parameter should be used, giving the name of the later case (as a link in brackets) that overturned the original case.