CQ Press Library

Additional Help Guides

Using Supreme Court Collection

Use the Supreme Court Collection to:

  • Find summaries and analyses of more than four thousand major decisions, as well as links to the full case text
  • Use the "Justice Role Finder," "Justice Opinion Analysis," and "Voting Bloc Analysis" as powerful tools to research justices' voting records and opinion alignments
  • Browse cases by topic—including contemporary and controversial issues like the death penalty, privacy, and free speech
  • Research documentation of public opinion of the Court, appropriations history, judicial legislation, chronologies of major cases and justices, and judicial staffing

Browse Cases by topic. Each case profile lists the vote breakdown, opinion writers, links to the transcripts when available, and a summary of the case. You can also search for cases by name, date, Court term, topic, Constitutional area, or type of case.

screenshot of overview of fisher vs. university of texxas at austin (2013)

Find Biographies of Supreme Court Justices including links to their case roles.

biography of sandra day o'connor

Opinion Alignment analyzes how many times one justice joined with the written opinion of another. 

Here is a breakdown of the cases where Elena Kagan joined the written opinion of Sonia Sotomayor, and vice versa.  Clicking on the hyperlinked numbers will take you to the list of cases.

cases where Elena Kagan joined the written opinion of Sonia Sotomayor, and vice versa

Justice Voting Blocks shows you when justices voted together. Here’s a partial list of cases where Kagan and Sotomayor voted with the majority opinion.

partial list of cases where Kagan and Sotomayor voted with the majority opinion.

Supreme Court expert Kenneth Jost writes topical reports on the workings of the Court.  Recent titles include “How Does a Case Get to the Supreme Court?” and “Camera Shy: The Court’s Video Prohibition.”

Quick Links

Popular Resources

The Chronology dates back to the beginning of the Court.

The Primary Source documents include the Articles of Confederation, Declaration of Independence, and selected Federalist Papers.

Under World Constitutions you can find information on the constitutions of 100 countries.