This site is intended to complement both the use of this textbook and the study of constitutional law and the Supreme Court generally. Open to users and nonusers alike, the site facilitates teaching and learning in at least four ways.
- The "Noteworthy Decisions" section of this site contains excerpts from important decisions rendered by the United States Supreme Court after June 2011. These most recent cases are presented in a format similar to the cases in the book. The author will add edited versions of other significant decisions soon after they come down.
- The "Cases Displaced" section recognizes the editorial reality that a new edition containing new cases requires the elimination of some cases from the previous edition. Thus, all edited cases that appeared in the older editions that could not be carried over into the current edition may be accessed here. In addition, a small number of important cases from even earlier editions are included too. Faculty preparing syllabi thus have a larger number of edited cases from which to choose.
- The "Historic Documents" section contains two kinds of data. First are a pair of documents neither widely available on the Internet nor even in many undergraduate libraries: (a) the complete text of three of Robert Yates's "Letters of Brutus" (1788) on the subject of judicial power, two of which appear in excerpted form in Chapter Two; and, (b) the complete text of Justice John Bannister Gibson's dissenting opinion for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Eakin v. Raub (1825), which appears in excerpted form also in Chapter Two. Second are links to various documents from the Founding Era that are available at other sites.
- The "Court-related Resources" section consists of links to various sites containing (a) decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and the lower federal courts and state courts as well; (b) and a variety of Court-related sites useful noncase material.