Talk:Law of the United States

May we include a list of US legal encyclopedias?

Since Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, I think information about US legal encyclopedias (at least, the ones thar are online) may be a good further reading tool.--93.41.98.177 (talk) 11:28, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

yes please do. If they are found in university libraries include major paper editions too. Rjensen (talk) 11:47, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

We have a possible sockpuppet inserting grossly incompetent edits

Hmmm. No Wikipedia editor is able to competently cite Wikipedia policy and guidelines in their very first edits on the encyclopedia. The fact that Russell Savage is citing them in his first few edits is highly suspicious. There are smarter ways to sockpuppet, you know.

Plus the edits are grossly incompetent. If I filed a brief with those errors with any federal court, I'd be fired. Immediately. Obviously they're not written by a lawyer (or one who attended a law school in the top 20).

Major problems include:

• Equating U.S. law to the Constitution with the use of the copula "is", which is plainly ridiculous. The Constitution is merely the tip of the iceberg. Instant C in constitutional law.
• Lack of understanding of the roots of U.S. law and the U.S. Constitution in English common law (which is what my original prose explained). Instant F in constitutional law.
• Lack of understanding of how U.S. federalism works. States are separate sovereigns and are the final word on their state's law under Erie Railroad. C in civil procedure.
• The cite to Constitution.org is improper because the use of that text on that site is a clear copyright violation. American Jurisprudence 2d was published in 1962 and is still protected by copyright (which is protected by the Constitution, BTW). Plus the Constitution.org site appears to have been written by a non-lawyer who has no understanding of constitutional law. I've seen better writing in habeas corpus briefs from prisoners.
• The citation to "16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256" is nonsensical gibberish. A correct citation looks like this: "47 Am. Jur. 2d. Jury § 266 (1995)." First, you're missing periods. Second, "late 2d" is not a valid notation in any major American legal citation system. I can't tell if you're citing sections 177, 256, both, or everything in between. Third, an Am. Jur. cite always mentions the title of the Am. Jur. article being cited and uses the section sign (§). There's no reference to the article being cited so it's impossible to tell which article in volume 16 is being cited. Fourth, no competent lawyer or legal scholar relies upon Am. Jur. 2d as the sole basis for a point of law; it's always cited after citing three or four cases or law review articles on the same point of law. These are the kind of basics everyone learns in law school after their first assignment in Lawyering Skills comes back with red marks all over it despite their earnest best efforts.
• The change of "refuses to enforce" to "refuses to try" makes zero sense. You don't "try" statutes in a court of law, you "try" facts (that is, a trial is the submission of evidence to the finder of fact to determine the facts). You sue to either "enforce" statutes or to have them "overturned." That mistake alone would get you an instant F in civil procedure and Lawyering Skills.
• Deleted the citation to Friedman but failed to transfer the full citation to the next abbreviated citation to Larry Friedman. That's an instant C in basic high school freshman English composition.

Either clean up this crap now, or it's out of here in three days. --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:20, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

Okay, no one's defended this garbage. Reverting NOW. --Coolcaesar (talk) 08:28, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Oh well, I came here to late, I dont agree on reverting the lead, it feels wrong to begin with the history of english law, since its refered to later in this most excellent article. Im not competent enough, to judge the citings you mentioned, but the current lead is not in accordance with the general Wikipedia policy and guidelines, so I suggest reverting the lead, to what ever the alleged Sockpuppet suggested. --80.199.63.146 (talk) 10:43, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

I agree, this article is too good, to be arguing over silly details. Attempting a compromise for the lead...--Erik Ernst (talk) 16:41, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for adding sanity to this discussion. The purpose of open editing in this manner is to improve articles, not to find reasons to shut other editors out. --206.176.211.72 (talk) 18:14, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

Looks like no one bothered to read my critique above. Besides ad hominem attacks, no one has given me any actual REASONS why that garbage should stay, or located the correct citation (if there is one) for the point for which the nonsensical citation to "16 Am Jur 2d, Sec 177 late 2d, Sec 256" was given. These aren't "silly details," this is the difference between competent and incompetent writing.

For example, equating U.S. law to the Constitution, period, is just plain inaccurate and stupid. Only a ten-year-old child (who hasn't taken high school civics yet) would believe that. I litigate U.S. law every day and I rarely need to cite directly to the Constitution! --Coolcaesar (talk) 09:36, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I did read your critique Coolcaesar, I changed the "try to enforce" to your suggestion. I also keept some lines refering to english law. Arguing over the length of a lead is VERY silly, especially when the rest of the article is so well written. The lead now meets the standards, we all want that dont we?--Erik Ernst (talk) 10:08, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I am curious about the term "federal." It does not appear in the Constitution. Where did the Founding Fathers up pick it? Posted 28 August 2009. —Preceding unsigned comment added by AustinTexasRRTX (talk • contribs) 16:40, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

It was a prevailing idea at the time. It is not mentioned in the constitution, but evident in the construction. See the "Federalist Papers," which I highly recommend be read. Zoticogrillo (talk) 17:56, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

Article may require protection soon

We have an ongoing problem with several editors, including User:Russell Savage, reinserting POV unsourced original research garbage about stare decisis and judge-made law into the first few paragraphs of the article. Zoticogrillo, myself, and several other decent editors have been countering these bad edits but this is getting irritating. If this nonsense doesn't stop, the article may require full protection soon. I also request any available admin to run the CheckUser tool on User:Russell Savage to ensure no obvious sockpuppeting is going on.

I also note that blogger Zephram Stark has actively promoted vandalism to this article of the type which Russell Savage is engaging in. --Coolcaesar (talk) 08:19, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Just figured out something. I suspect User:Russell Savage is actually a sockpuppet of User:Zephram Stark, a notorious Wikipedia vandal who has been banned for extremely inappropriate behavior and sockpuppeting, and has posted a blog entry on how to sockpuppet. See also Stark's section at Wikipedia:Long term abuse/Page 2. I also note that Russell Savage, in this edit, deleted my earlier critique of his conduct. This was a behavior which was singled out as ArbCom's third finding of fact against Zephram Stark in the final decision on the RfA against him. --Coolcaesar (talk) 08:31, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, I figured it out. Russell Savage is almost certainly a sockpuppet of Zephram Stark. The exact position articulated in the edits which I have had to revert recently was also articlated by Stark in this edit and this edit back in 2005. --Coolcaesar (talk) 08:45, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Personal attacks are uncalled for. Consensus on this article is that the judiciary interprets the law, but can never make or enforce law. This is consistent with cited secondary sources and with related articles on Wikipedia. --Russell Savage (talk) 14:05, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

I reverted a wholesale edit by editor Russell Savage. Much of the Russell Savage material I reverted appears to have been prohibited original research (OR) and tendentious commentary (involving NPOV concerns). The rule on Verifiability appears to be of concern here too -- for example, in the references to "licensing agreements". Famspear (talk) 15:48, 22 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks! Also, as you probably noticed, I did some research in Google Books and added some more references. I specifically added a reference to A Matter of Interpretation by Antonin Scalia, currently the most vigorous opponent of the concept of a "living Constitution" as well as the controversial concept of the "evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society" (Trop v. Dulles), which he specifically challenges at pages 36-42 of his book. Yet even Scalia concedes up front (pages 3-13) that common law judges make law.

Also, if Russell Savage (or should I say, Zephram Stark) keeps up the sockpuppeting and the tendentious POV/OR edits, we'll have to get an admin to lock down this article soon. I note that Savage has not specifically denied that he is actually Zephram Stark. It's not a personal attack to point out that a user is almost certainly another user who has been banned from Wikipedia for extremely bad behavior, including the use of ethnic slurs. Also, as I pointed out in my earlier edits to Savage's talk page (which he deleted), it's extremely rare for a new user with so few edits to be so intimately familiar with WP policies and guidelines. --Coolcaesar (talk) 01:18, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Russell has just been banned as a sockpuppet of User:Danbur, whose edits also bear a striking resemblance to those of Zephram Stark. But we still need to be vigilant against any new sockpuppets! --Coolcaesar (talk) 01:27, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

Okay, this ignorant bozo Zephram Stark has just declared war on this article and on Wikipedia at this blog post, in which he actively urges vandalism of this article. I'm posting a notice to Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous) so any available admin can impose protection on this article. Amusingly, Stark was stupid enough to admit in his blog post that he vandalized Judiciary (through sockpuppet User:Gorillasapiens back in June), which I just caught and fixed. --Coolcaesar (talk) 01:49, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

I vote that protection is now appropriate. The reasons I see for this are: the edits have become increasingly aggressive with POV-pushing, many edits have removed proper citations, and the various editors have been doing so without any engagement on the discussion page. However, citations on this topic (case law and judicial powers) should be inserted in order to lock out this edit warring for good. Zoticogrillo (talk) 01:58, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

no practical section

I saw this article referred to in a complaint board, not sure which one (ANI?)

There is no section on practical matters, such as in the USA, the loser pays the lawyers only in the national court system but this is often waived. There is no mention about the litigenous nature of US society either. Or the futility of being your own lawyer unless you want to lose.

There is also no information about regulations. If you break a regulation, you can pay a huge fine, sometimes enough to bankrupt you. Where do regulations fit in. Are they laws?

Does these practical matters have a place in this article or is it just a stuffy recital of academic information? Although ownership of articles is discouraged, it does happen. Who is the owner here? If you, please answer. I am curious and do not advocate one answer or another. Suomi Finland 2009 (talk) 21:14, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the above completely.--93.41.98.177 (talk) 11:25, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

The first issue you raise about the American Rule is a good point and I will expand the civil procedure section to add a link to the appropriate article in the next week or so (as well as a mention of class actions, another unique feature). The issue of regulations and their force of law is already covered (read the article again). The issue about the dominance of law and litigiousness in U.S. society is also a good point, but that will take me a while to find a source for that, though I know they exist since I saw a few while researching Lawyer. The issue of self-representation isn't really appropriate here because that's a problem universal to all legal systems and is already addressed briefly in a sourced passage in the Lawyer article. --Coolcaesar (talk) 07:59, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Interpretations of the law

I have reverted the lead and some quotes, that some people keep removing for some reason. I suggest we make a section called Interpretations of the law, and then present the various POVs there, rather than destrying this fine article. --Erik Ernst (talk) 07:31, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Read my critique above, starting from the words "Major problems include." The edits you reverted contained all the problems which I had criticized. Please keep in mind that legal citations have to be precise and the ones you reinserted were not (in fact, it was practically impossible to determine what the hell was being cited). Law students regularly flunk out of law school and lawyers lose cases all the time due to their inability to grasp the basic rules of legal citation, because then no one can figure out what they are citing, which severely detracts from the persuasive power of what they are saying (it kills their credibility). And the edits are poorly written and are out of compliance with the Manual of Style. Only amateurs and little children dump laundry lists of random quotes like that, with no attempt at linking. (The concept of "verbal diarrhea" comes to mind.) Mature, competent professional writers link and weave quotes together into a coherent narrative.

Also, there are major original research issues, starting with the laughable proposition that Article One of the Constitution expresses the intent of the Founders to abrogate judge-made common law, a crackpot concept which is not expressed anywhere on the face of that portion of the Constitution, and to which no intelligent scholar of any political persuasion subscribes. That proposition is non-neutral original research for which no one has provided a source to any verifiable reliable source (because none exists).

Keep in mind, Wikipedia is not a publisher of original research, adheres to a neutral point of view, and must be sourced to verifiable reliable sources. See WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, WP:RS, and WP:V. As you may or may not be aware, User:Zephram Stark was ejected from the project for his refusal to adhere to these policies, which are non-negotiable (I sincerely hope you are not one of his sockpuppets or allies). Jimbo Wales, the Wikimedia Foundation, and ArbCom have steadfastly refused to modify those core policies and regularly ban editors who cannot or will not comply with them.

Plus, the proposition is simply wrong. I recently added a citation into the article to a book by Justice Antonin Scalia (an ultraconservative and the most ferocious contemporary opponent of the "living Constitution") in which he concedes that common law judges make law! --Coolcaesar (talk) 07:54, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I accept, that the citations could be more precise, and have not reinserted them. As to the lead, I dont really see what your problem is. I made it clear concise and to the point. The lead you made belongs to the section called sources of law - well infact it belongs to Interpretations of the law or something like that. Its fine that you believe that Lawyers and judges are "above" the constitution, hence my suggestion of a interpretations section, but since you are a lawyer your self, we have an obvious Conflict of Interest here. - We can play this game for as long as you want to, or we can find a compromise. Its not like I have completely destoyed hours or your work, infact, Ive gone out of my way to respect your comments etc.

As to your idea of me being a sockpuppet.....thats just out of order, and I would ask of you to refrain from that sort of allegations against my person in the future please, I find it rather offensive to be honest, and it wont improve this article.

You have no citations supporting your position and you ignored the citation already in the article which supports my position. I strongly advise you to refrain from further edits or you will be classified as a vandal acting in bad faith and will be permanently blocked. I also suggest that you read Scalia's book, which is written for a general nonlawyer audience. --Coolcaesar (talk) 08:24, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

You can classify me exactly as you want, if you are keen enough, you can create a wiki article about me, but please do not threaten me, or impose dishonest intentions on my person and my edits. What supports my position is Article 1 Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States;

“ All legislative Powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States, which shall consist of a Senate and House of Representatives. ”

--Erik Ernst (talk) 09:18, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Problematic edits by Rorschach I just reverted

Here's why some of Rorschach's edits don't make sense:

• "Circumscribing" is the correct word rather than "limit." Limit carries a connotation of bluntness which circumscribing does not. Federal preemption of state law is a tricky business that is far too complex to be summed up by the word "limit."
• "Supreme law of the land" is preferable as that is the text actually used in the Constitution.
• U.S. law has incorporated some civil law innovations, but by no means many. For example, our so-called codes are mere compilations of statutes and are largely a harebrained incoherent mess compared to their civil law counterparts.
• The federal preemption in aviation and railroads is fairly powerful, compared, for example, motor vehicle law, which is shared between federal and state law.
• Rorshach's "Federal courts can create federal common law as case law" creates ambiguity as to whether federal common law can be created as anything else. Keep in mind the audience for this article may have NO legal training at all. The original syntax correctly implies that it can be created only in the form of case law.
• "Can do without" is a casual idiom, like "I could care less," that is both vague and carries a grossly inappropriate tone for a formal encyclopedia article.
• Rorschach butchered the sentence discussing the Erie doctrine by deleting the word "decisional." That word is essential because it is the entire point of the Erie doctrine! (Which in turn is one of the most important components of a course in American civil procedure.) No first-year law student (who passed civil procedure) would make that mistake.
• Federal agencies don't merely issue regulations, they promulgate them. Issue is a vague word that can apply to all kinds of official (or unofficial) acts; promulgate is a precise one that applies only to official regulatory acts of bureaucracies.
• The phrase "individual judges" is essential to implying that followers of the natural law theory saw law as existing in the abstract and apart from any human being's subjective perception. "What each judge said" doesn't carry quite the same connotation.
• Justice Scalia consistently denounces judicial lawmaking (as recently as three weeks ago) as "anti-democratic," not "undemocratic." --Coolcaesar (talk) 23:28, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

American federalism is really only bipartite, not tripartite

You're clearly out of touch with the academic literature. The concept of "tripartite" sovereignty has been floating around in federal Indian law since the early 1970s, which you could have verified in five minutes by simply searching Google Books. Your ignorance is understandable, though, since the concept is primarily taught only in upper-level courses for students who will be specializing in federal Indian law. However, I didn't even take federal Indian law, nor was I aware of this concept in law school, but I learned about it because it's been getting a lot of attention in legal magazines and newspapers during the past five years. For a nuanced discussion of the subject, see Tonya Kowalski, "The Forgotten Sovereigns," 36 FSU Law. R. 765 (2009). --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:38, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Wow. Interesting. It seemed so counterintuitive to me, and I had heard the term dual sovereigns bandied about at law school so often, I was sure it had to be wrong, and that aboriginals were merely a special group in whose respect the federal government is constitutionally-empowered to govern to the exclusion of the States.

I remember reading Johnson v. M'Intosh (Dukeminier on Property); the article starts with that base case too. I simply assumed, never having studied in law school about aboriginal sovereignty, and having been subject only to the ubiquitous doctrine of dual sovereignty, that a tri-sovereigntist theory, to the extent that it exists, has become outmoded.

The article certainly examines both sides of the contention; that being said, having read it, I have to conclude that I was in error, and that sovereignty as to Aboriginals does indeed still exist, although it's nothing approaching the extent of sovereignty the States enjoy, but does have within its characteristics something greater than municipal autonomy. The article does concede that "[a]ccording to the plenary power doctrine, Indian nations, as political entities, exist only at the sufferance of Congress: Congress is free to limit or terminate that sovereignty at will." 36 FSU Law R. 765, 775 (2009). Emphasis added.

I can see that sovereignty, even that which is subject to external, at-will diminution at law (rather than merely as a matter of politics) is still sovereignty. One does certainly marvel at the injustices suffered by them historically. I simply had assumed that the U.S. federal government, as the Canadian government found in the case of the Oka Crisis, previously found this situation as troublesome as the Canadian governments obviously have, and relegated aboriginal sovereignty accordingly.

Thank you for pointing this out to me. I worked so hard at law school to graduate with my degree; not having attained subsequently where I have tried to be by now, I wish I could continue on with the academic study of law from inside. 174.58.42.212 (talk) 14:54, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Proposed merge unnecessary

I see nothing in United States legal system that needs to be merged here. It appears to be the disorganized ramblings of a lay editor not from the U.S. based on surfing other articles on Wikipedia about various aspects of U.S. law and U.S. courts. --Coolcaesar (talk) 21:52, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

It's been over a week. No response. I'm dropping that useless merge tag. --Coolcaesar (talk) 05:01, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

I agree, but next time, please remove the merge templates from all the involved articles. Thank you. –pjoef (talk • contribs) 07:25, 6 April 2011 (UTC)

Correct Citation

The correct citation is:

"The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, whether federal or state, though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose, since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law and no courts are bound to enforce it." 16 Am.Jur.2d § 256.

It's cited and recognized in many court cases.

Evolve-0r-Die (talk) 07:48, 25 January 2013 (UTC)

What the "Learned" Should Learn

"Learned"

To the "learned" making derogatory comments here toward the laymen: You would do well to ponder a couple of things. First, statutes and law are not the same (legal and lawful are not the same; law trumps statutes) and anyone failing to differentiate between the two in purported practice or enforcement of either commits an act of negligence equal to fraud. Second, do not be so quick to assume that you know everything about what you call "law" because you went to law school -- more specifically, do not assume that important knowledge was not intentionally withheld from you during your indoctrination. I've been in state and federal litigation and sent career attorneys away in tears. Why? Because I'm not an attorney and therefore get to think outside of the tiny attorney box and use all the tools on the shelf. I wholeheartedly agree with the words of attorney ­David L. Geislinger in What Price Justice? Why Was Amendment 40 Even on the Ballot?, 36 Colo.Law. 5 (May, 2007) at 77. Even more so, I wholeheartedly agree with the words of Jesus in the book of Luke, ch. 11, verses 46-52. Your snide, condescending, "holier than thou" attitudes, combined with a general and well-warranted distrust of those in your profession/religion, contribute greatly to the sharp rise in pro se litigation over the last decade. “Set him who wishes to be deceived, be deceived.” Maxims, Bouvier's Revised Sixth Edition, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the united states of America and of the several states of the American union (1856). “He is not deceived who knows himself to be deceived. 5 co. 60.” Maxims, Bouvier's Revised Sixth Edition, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the united states of America and of the several states of the American union (1856). Evolve-0r-Die (talk) 08:16, 25 January 2013 (UTC) How does this relate to article improvement? (Please see WP:TPNO.) — Preceding unsigned comment added by srich32977 (talk • contribs) 07:34, January 25, 2013‎ It doesn't. Judges, who virtually without exception are graduates of law schools, who learned and know the law and once were lawyers, are never impressed by litigants who are so deceived as to ignore the law and brag about their tools. Steveozone (talk) 06:01, 26 January 2013 (UTC) "I've been in state and federal litigation and sent career attorneys away in tears. Why? Because I'm not an attorney and therefore get to think outside of the tiny attorney box and use all the tools on the shelf." --Baloney. Famspear (talk) 13:02, 26 January 2013 (UTC) "....do not be so quick to assume that you know everything about what you call "law" because you went to law school -- more specifically, do not assume that important knowledge was not intentionally withheld from you during your indoctrination." --Baloney. Famspear (talk) 13:03, 26 January 2013 (UTC) I wish I had a dime for every time I've seen someone who has never been to law school falsely claim to know how lawyers are "indoctrinated." Dear "Evolve-Or-Die": Here's a clue: Citing Bouvier's in a Wikipedia talk page is a dead give away. If you want to impress others, don't cite Bouvier's, for heaven's sake. Here's another clue. Lawyers in American law schools are not "indoctrinated" in the sense in which you obviously assume. Law school does not work the way you think it works. It's not high school or college. We don't sit for hours listening to professors lecture on a topic. And our reading materials do not consist primarily of textbooks, in the sense of a high school or college type of textbook. A rise in the amount of pro se litigation, if any, is accompanied by a rise in the number of lawyers who win cases against pro se litigants -- lawyers walking away "in tears," all right -- tears of laughter. If you don't want other people to act in a snide and condescending manner, then don't pretend to be a legal scholar who somehow knows the law better than the lawyers, and don't come here and lecture the rest of us. This talk page was not put here for the purpose of allowing anonymous non-lawyers to come here and make unsubstantiated and, bluntly, ridiculous off-topic statements about their beliefs about what lawyers do or do not know, etc. The purpose of this talk page is to provide a forum for disussing ways to improve the article. Famspear (talk) 14:15, 26 January 2013 (UTC)

"This talk page was not put here for the purpose of allowing anonymous non-lawyers to come here and make unsubstantiated and, bluntly, ridiculous off-topic statements about their beliefs about what lawyers do or do not know, etc." Was the talk page put here for lawyers to talk down to and belittle non-lawyers, as is the history before I ever posted here? Interestingly, this page documents and evidences -- before my first interaction here -- lawyers whining about an incorrect citation instead of just using their self-implied superiority to go and find the correct citation, the finding of which took me less than 10 minutes. My first contribution to this page was to correct the citation in question, before addressing the pre-existing "holier than thou" talk. "Citing Bouvier's in a Wikipedia talk page is a dead give away. If you want to impress others, don't cite Bouvier's, for heaven's sake." (1) Tell it to the Supreme Court, which routinely cites Bouvier's, (2) my citations from Bouvier's have nothing to do with trying to impress anyone, and (3) you clearly have no clue what a maxim is or the significance thereof, which I find disheartening, and which explains a lot about the near-total lack of public confidence in attorneys. "We don't sit for hours listening to professors lecture on a topic." every law-related topic imaginable and are publicly posted online, paint a different story. The thousands upon thousands of hours of video recordings by law students all over the country, which videos cover just about "If you don't want other people to act in a snide and condescending manner, then don't pretend to be a legal scholar who somehow knows the law better than the lawyers, and don't come here and lecture the rest of us." The snide and condescending acts predate my arrival here; I merely responded to those acts.

In any case, the citation in question is corrected. You're welcome. Evolve-0r-Die (talk) 06:57, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

The Supreme Court has rarely cited Bouvier's since the 1960s. Excessive reliance on maxims is a common mistake made by pro se litigants. What wins most of the time is citing relevant authority on point; what wins the rest of the time is having compelling facts. Also, the lecture format is more frequently found at second and third-tier law schools; top-tier law schools pride themselves on adherence to the traditional Socratic method. --Coolcaesar (talk) 07:04, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

I would respectfully disagree that the Supreme Court rarely cites Bouvier's since the 1960's. I've seen quite a number of post-1960 cases still citing both Bouvier's and Ballentine's (and likewise with state court cases still citing Black's). I do agree with you on the assertion that too many pro se litigants try to win cases by excessive reliance on maxims. This, however is a talk page - not a court case. ;) Although I have seen that, at times, a court can be absolutely driven by maxims (by standing on and practicing the principles of the maxims, which are supposed to be the principles of law, but without actually citing them). On that note, the maxims I cited (as they relate to acquiescence) are reflected in many ways throughout the history of law, state and federal rules of civil and criminal procedure and case law, and even the Law of Nations. Unfortunately, all too many attorneys spend their careers practicing the maxims I cited - deceiving and getting away with whatever they can get away with for as long as they can do so, which seems to me to be in discord with the interests of true and actual justice for anyone. I hope you're not among them. "What wins most of the time is citing relevant authority on point; what wins the rest of the time is having compelling facts." Come on, now. Surely you know that if the facts are on your side, you pound the law; that if the law is on your side, you pound the facts; and that if neither the law nor the facts are on your side, you pound the table. :) So as not to clutter up this already-cluttered page any further, I'd be happy to continue this discussion with you and others elsewhere. Evolve-0r-Die (talk) 07:34, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Dear Evolve-Or-Die: You provided a "correction" to a citation to a secondary source that was, as far as I can see, not a "correction" of anything, and for which no one was searching. You complain of the tenor of the posts of other editors, yet you have not identified which posts. I don't know what you thought you were "correcting" here with your marvelous citation, and I don't know what your reference to "snide, condescending, 'holier than thou' attitudes was about.

No, with all due respect, the U.S. Supreme Court does not cite Bouvier's with any significant frequency. My statement was: "Citing Bouvier's in a Wikipedia talk page is a dead give away. If you want to impress others, don't cite Bouvier's, for heaven's sake." You are not the Supreme Court, and this is not a court of law. This is a Wikipedia talk page, and you are not a lawyer or a judge. If the Supreme Court wants to cite Bouvier, the Supreme Court knows how to use the material properly. If you want to impress others and to be seen as one of the big boys, you do not cite Bouvier's in a Wikipedia talk page in the way you did.

No, whatever law-related topics you believe you have seen do not paint a different story. Go back and read Coolcaesar's comments. A typical law school experience is primarily case method for outside class study and Socratic method for the classroom. Law school is predominantly directed self-teaching, not "indoctrination" in the sense in which I believe you are thinking. The law school experience is not primarily a professor lecturing and spoon feeding his or her students, and it is not a student reading a textbook. Famspear (talk) 12:49, 28 January 2013 (UTC)

Recent edits that are simply incorrect

I just countermanded a grossly inaccurate edit by User:NuclearWarfare.

The original text (which I mostly drafted) was:

However, since precedents became binding, it is now sometimes possible, over time, for a line of them to drift away from the express language of any underlying statutory or constitutional texts, until such texts are severely overloaded with implied meanings not even hinted at on their face. This tendency towards so-called judicial lawmaking has been most evident in federal substantive due process decisions. It is subject to harsh criticism as "antidemocratic" from originalists such as Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, as in this 2000 dissenting opinion:

In imposing its Court-made code upon the States, the original opinion at least asserted that it was demanded by the Constitution. Today's decision does not pretend that it is—and yet still asserts the right to impose it against the will of the people's representatives in Congress. Far from believing that stare decisis compels this result, I believe we cannot allow to remain on the books even a celebrated decision—especially a celebrated decision—that has come to stand for the proposition that the Supreme Court has power to impose extraconstitutional constraints upon Congress and the States. This is not the system that was established by the Framers, or that would be established by any sane supporter of government by the people.

This was revised to the following garbled mess (errors are marked with [sic]):

It is possible for judicial decisions to reach conclusions about implied meaning of underlying statutes or the Constitution that may not be immediately apparent from that may not be apparent [sic] from a plain reading of the texts. Critics, such as constitutional originalists, have asserted that this amounts of [sic] anti-democratic judicial lawmaking, especially in the context of federal substantive due process,[49] Commerce Clause, and equal protection decisions.

Neither the Founding Fathers nor any American alive in the 1790s would have actually contemplated that the newly ratified Constitution incorporated things like a general right to privacy (let alone reproductive privacy) or a right to be told that "you have a right to remain silent" upon arrest (which is what Justice Scalia was getting at in his biting dissent in Dickerson). Nothing in the text of the Constitution expressly grants such rights. It is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest to suggest that such rights "may not be immediately apparent." That implies that they were always there but were merely hidden within a vague constitutional text, when that was not actually the case. Rather, they exist only as judicial glosses on judicial glosses on the constitutional text.

The text I drafted specifically highlighted that fact, while the revised text tries to hide it. While I personally support the notion of a living Constitution and virtually all of the policy objectives that have been accomplished under the rubric of substantive due process, I also recognize that originalists have a legitimate critique that reading unwritten rights into the Constitution short-circuits the democratic process (in that many of the rights recognized by substantive due process were ultimately secured through the democratic process in other countries because they were unavailable in then-extant statutory or constitutional law). --Coolcaesar (talk) 02:12, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

Your point is well-taken. My reason for the initial edit was initially driven by two concerns. First, Scalia's quote from Dickerson seems too long compared to the rest of the paragraph. Second, the phrase "until such texts are severely overloaded with implied meanings not even hinted at on their face" may be true, but it's written in a way that begs the reader to criticize the actions of the courts over the last several decades. Perhaps we could consider a compromise text, perhaps something like:

However, since precedents became binding, it is now sometimes possible, over time, for a line of them to drift away from the express language of any underlying statutory or constitutional texts until they establish doctrines that would not have been considered by the texts' drafters. This tendency towards so-called judicial lawmaking has been most evident in federal substantive due process and Commerce Clause decisions. Originalists and political conservatives, such as Associate Justice Antonin Scalia have criticized this trend as anti-democratic (cite Dickerson or Planned Parenthood v. Casey; perhaps Thomas in Comstock for Commerce Clause).

NW (Talk) 02:34, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

• I would really prefer that this type of discussion be cited to a source (perhaps a law review article), but if no source is available, I prefer NW's (revised) version as it seems more neutrally-worded. I also don't think a long blockquote by Scalia is necessary. II | (t - c) 04:09, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

• • One man's courageous jurist strong in his convictions is another man's judicial activist. It's judicial lawmaking when you don't agree with the decision. I don't think we can fairly describe this debate by using terms like "judicial lawmaking" even if it is in quotes. So-called (or self-described) originalists have often extended judicial doctrines in ways that weren't really contemplated. Like any political discussion, the classifications used to describe the process are often co-opted and redefined by those who are engaged in the process and are the very individuals to be classified and described. Explaining what "precedent" means is one thing, but if the discussion goes to any finer detail, then there needs to be a source tightly bound to every point made about varying jurisprudential methods and philosophies, and the labels used ought to be very carefully considered. Steveozone (talk) 05:33, 28 June 2013 (UTC)

• @Coolcaesar:, just wanted to get your thoughts on the matter now that we have the input of a few other editors. NW (Talk) 11:59, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

Ugh! The article reeks of ESSAY and POV. Seven sections/subsections (≈ 31 whole paragraphs) have no refs at all. There are citations/quotations from cases, which constitutes WP:PRIMARY source WP:OR. For the particular items which lack RS, they should be blown up. Neither version is good -- the concepts need support from secondary sources. (Yes, my comment is largely WP:DRIVEBY, but I've got to many other irons in the WP fire to have a stab at this needed cleanup.) – S. Rich (talk) 16:05, 9 July 2013 (UTC)

• • I would still prefer to keep the full Dickerson quote, but on the other hand, I'm way too busy to take this issue to arbitration and it's not that big a deal, so I concede that NW's proposed revision is a fair compromise. --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:37, 22 July 2013 (UTC)

• • • Modified, but I think Srich is right. Much of this article needs to be restructured and rewritten based on secondary sources. NW (Talk) 02:30, 23 July 2013 (UTC)

References

Transferring all that material to the article on state law wasn't a good idea

I strongly disagree with User:Int21h's transfer of so much material to the article on state law. The result is that this article places too much undue weight on federal law when every major book on U.S. law stresses that most U.S. law is state law. Indeed, I had inserted that material in the first place because the article was unduly weighted in favor of federal law. --Coolcaesar (talk) 08:50, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

Because the state law article is a bona fide sub-article/main article, and I think the practice of incorporating major points of the main article, not the entire article, is appropriate. The state law article's introduction does not properly reflect the content of the article, which I think is what the problem is here. But there is a reason why: that article is in bad shape.

That article was taken from this article's state law section, which is to say, it is a horrible mess. Ask yourself a question: if you take out all the organization from that article, is it readable? No, I don't think it is. And that's how it was when it was in this article.

The fact that its enough information for its own article says something. It says it needs to be trimmed down, tightened up, and summarized before being incorporated into articles such as this. Saying it hasn't been properly summarized is no excuse to incorporate it wholesale. Int21h (talk) 19:03, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

And there are other problems with this article's structure that exacerbate the problem. First, just like the Levels of law->Federal law section, the Levels of law->State law section should have Statutes/Regulations/Common law, case law and precedent subsections, as well as a Local law subsection in addition.

There are two ways of viewing the different "levels" of law: Federal versus state, and statutes v. regulations/ordinances v. common law/case law. That is a 2 x 3 matrix (6-7 subsections), not 4-5 subsections. Int21h (talk) 19:12, 20 April 2014 (UTC)

And that's the issue---it sounds like you may be missing the forest for the trees. You're analyzing the topic as something that can or should be broken down into a matrix, rather than asking in the first place, what is U.S. law? It's an elephant far too big for any man to wrap his arms around, but at least we can give a rough sketch of its correct shape. After all, the U.S. is unique in treating federalism as a matter of states escalating limited powers to the federal sovereign rather than as devolution of federal sovereignty, which is what gives U.S. law its unique flavor. Other countries do not have the Restatements, they don't publish comprehensive legal codes, and they don't have the situation we have with uniform laws that are barely uniform. Without that material in this article, what's left is severely incomplete. For example, the sections discussing substantive material (contracts and torts) are now that much harder for a neophyte to understand because there is no lead-in to explain what are the Restatements or the Uniform Commercial Code. --Coolcaesar (talk) 11:20, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

Oh, I agree. (Besides your point about the matrix and the elephant.) But I think 1. the state law article should be expanded on these topics, and 2. the law of the United States article should summarize these topics. Again, I think, at the moment the summary of the state law article does not do these subjects service. But a good summary, one that is short and sweet, and for example, skips the history of the subject, should be in the law of the United States article. Not everything that is now in state law article. Its simply too much information for one article. Its a wall of text. Its a textbook in a supposed encyclopedia article. And when there's TMI, the point, the basic information that should be taken away, gets lost in the noise. Its the same reason the law of the United States article isn't merely incorporated into the United States article. Int21h (talk) 16:54, 21 April 2014 (UTC)

I agree with the general principle that this article should be short and sweet, but am not so sure that information was TMI. Those are very difficult topics that I had already boiled down to their essence. The very purpose of U.S. legal codes, the Restatements, and uniform laws is tightly bound with their history. I'll have to pick up this issue later when I have the time to deal with it. --Coolcaesar (talk) 07:26, 2 May 2014 (UTC)

I went back and looked at that text again with fresh eyes three months later and I still do not see it as TMI. The fact is that right now, as this article stands, the substantive sections are an incoherent mess because they are dependent on information that was previously provided in the text you transferred to the article on state law. Again, it is impossible to understand the unique nature of U.S. law without understanding the crazy struggles the U.S. went through (and is still going through) with interstate diversity. --Coolcaesar (talk) 17:53, 13 August 2014 (UTC)

I will note that over one year has passed since the article split. User:Int21h has failed to reconcile the mess created over a year ago when he or she removed sections that lower portions of the article were directly dependent upon. Ever heard of the concept of committing to your decisions? Unless Int21h steps up to own that mess soon, I'm going to propose a merge of the state law article back into this article. It is very, very difficult for laypersons to truly understand substantive American law without first understanding the kooky nature of state law from a comparative international perspective. (Both the Australians and Canadians think Americans are crazy on this issue.) --Coolcaesar (talk) 15:56, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

I have committed to my decision--I committed to it, I did it, it was done. I never split either article--both existed long before I edited either.

I still oppose a wholesale merger of the articles. It's too much material for one article. It is like creating a EU law article with a section on EU member state law--you would need to focus on major themes and leave the details to a main article. And I think Australians and Canadians probably have a better understanding than you think: Australia and Canada had entirely different legal systems from one another even when they were dominions within the United Kingdom. Even if the UK Parliament amended their constitutions one morning (Commonwealth of Australia Constitution Act 1900 and Canada Act 1982, respectively) most people would not be confused by this.

The WP:SUMMARY style should be used. This article should be sufficiently summarized for larger articles. If someone doesn't understand a particular topic, they go to the main article. Int21h (talk) 21:59, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

I think you completely missed the point about Australians and Canadians. I was referring to the issue of how they don't follow the Erie doctrine, which means they don't have true state sovereignty. Whereas the U.S. has true state sovereignty, but then it creates massive problems, which is why we have the Restatements, codification, and uniform laws. This difference is why the Supreme Court of Canada can issue decisions like Nichols v. American Home Assurance Co. (1990), in which the Court is setting forth rules of contractual interpretation in a way that is unheard of in the United States because of Erie and the Tenth Amendment. --Coolcaesar (talk) 22:52, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

• fyi, I'm basically OK with how things look right now except that the lead is written with more complexity than I feel necessary. I wikilinked stated law in the lead but I think the lead could call out the significance of state law more powerfully. II | (t - c) 04:22, 18 January 2016 (UTC)

Planning to remove the empty sections created by User:Wikidea on 30 August 2016

Wikidea created a whole bunch of empty sections on 30 August 2016. Over five months have elapsed. It is abundantly clear that no one with the training, knowledge, and experience to write such sections (e.g., myself) has the time, energy, or inclination to actually write them, let alone add citations to supporting sources. Any objections before I pull those sections out? I propose to retain the links to the relevant in-depth articles but transfer them to the See also section. --Coolcaesar (talk) 19:16, 20 February 2017 (UTC)

Never mind --- it looks like Wikidea has pulled those sections out. Thank you. I don't have any problem with those sections if and when someone gets around to writing them, but I do have a problem with the article looking like an incomplete mess with empty sections. --Coolcaesar (talk) 17:58, 21 February 2017 (UTC)

Public v. private law?

I'm removing that unsourced and incorrect statement about the distinction between public and private law in American law. That's clearly a European concept and not an American concept, as any conflicts scholar is well aware. The distinction between public and private law in American law is between laws of general application and laws of specific application (private bills), such as the laws that were used to charter corporations on an ad hoc one-on-one basis before general incorporation laws were invented. --Coolcaesar (talk) 02:36, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

The new lead paragraph is an inaccurate, incoherent, and dysfunctional mess and also original research

Here's why I just pulled out the new lead paragraph. Several issues. First, there is a "law of the United States" --- it is simply a term overloaded with multiple meanings, and one has to infer the one intended depending upon the context, similar to the concept of "common law". It can mean just federal law or it can include the aggregate of federal law and everything else. This is all discussed in the Legal Research book from Nolo cited and similar books. Second, it's quite clear that User:DCLawwyer hasn't read any of the cases cited (which I originally put in). All of those cites should have been pulled and replaced with "citation needed." I cited them for the proposition as to how different types of law are part and parcel of the law of the United States. User:DCLawwyer is trying to cite them, inaccurately, for propositions as to the structure of the federal and state governments and the power of organs of those governments to create law. Those concepts are a completely different animal (something which anyone who passed an introductory course in political science should be able to recognize) and Wikipedia already has multiple articles on those separate subjects. It's also intellectually dishonest as User:DCLawwyer is citing cases for holdings which they do not contain. (I have seen lawyers sanctioned both in person and in writing by judges for less.) Third, User:DCLawwyer (who has been reasonably cogent in other contexts on Wikipedia) has inserted multiple unusual word usages that are absent from both the case law and academic literature on these issues. The only people I have ever seen use words like "fractionate" or "palette" to describe the structure of American law are laypersons and pro pers. The opinions of jurists like Scalia, Posner, and Kozinski show how to discuss complex legal concepts in a lucid, vivid, and creative manner without sounding like one went off the deep end. Fourth, User:DCLawwyer is publishing original research in violation of WP:NOR. Whereas the previous analysis (which I largely drafted) was clearly drawn from sources that expressly analyze the law of the United States as a multi-level system, User:DCLawwyer has cited no source for the ludicrous thesis that the term "law of the United States" has no precise or integrated meaning. It does have a precise and integrated meaning; it just happens to have two meanings, one of which is usually intended depending upon the context. --Coolcaesar (talk) 18:30, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

I have no objection to clarifying any way you see fit, as long as the concept is communicated that there is no unitary concept of "law of the United States." Any time I see a "law of the United States" choice of law clause in a contract, I pull it out -- there's no such thing! Your comments here acknowledge the same concepts I was trying to get to -- the "law of the United States" is at best a group of independent but interdependent legal systems that borrow from each other, with some related parallel-evolution underlying concepts -- but there is no one unitary thing. They diverge -- sometimes proudly and defiantly so.

In this case, a straight-up revert reintroduces the conceptual error that I was trying to correct. I have no vested interest in my precise wording, and in most cases I am very comfortable with the other work of yours that I have seen. This is an exception. Certainly there's a middle ground -- shall I leave it to you to take the next step in finding it? DCLawwyer (talk) 18:42, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

If we can find common ground on the basis that the article should be revised to clearly indicate up front that the term has two distinct meanings, one federal and one aggregate, and with that understanding in mind, is ambiguous unless interpreted within a specific context, I think that would work. I have no problem with undertaking the task of making that clarification, but that depends on when I can get to a law library within the next few weeks. --Coolcaesar (talk) 18:56, 25 November 2017 (UTC)

The basic outline you propose sounds like it's headed the right direction. I have a couple small midcourse corrections.

I'd quibble with the count of "two" or existence of a state "aggregate." (I'm sure that any Texas lawyer and Massachusetts lawyer placed in a room together would howl at the idea that they form any "aggregate." Likewise, New York (with its relatively high reliance on common law and reluctance to intervene by adopt Uniform Law statutes), and Louisiana (with its civil law approach to private law) don't fit comfortably into an "aggregate.") Perhaps consider "51" as the starting point for the correct number?

I'm puzzled at your diagnosis of "original research" -- what specifically? This all looks like uncontroversial 1L Con Law stuff to me. Assembling all the compare-and-contrast in one place is perhaps new, but no individual proposition seems the least bit "original" to me. But of course I'm happy to see things from someone else's point of view. (On the other hand, treating 50 states as an "aggregate" seems startlingly "original.")

I used the term "palette" because I didn't want to use the term "police power" in an article for non-lawyers to describe the range of state law making authority. I have no attachment to the term "palette" but it was a term that communicates to non-lawyers the concept that's embodied in the term of art "police power" without the easily-misunderstood baggage of the word "police." I'm fine with any other linguistic formulation. I no longer have my old "Constitutional Law in a Nutshell" to see what term they used. Whatever it was, it'll be fine.

With those thoughts in mind, I'm sure the result of your research and rewrite will be fabulous.

DCLawwyer (talk) 01:27, 26 November 2017 (UTC)

User:Coolcaesar:

Sorry, it took me a lot of thought to figure out where the disconnect is. NOW I get it.

I know what the term "laws of the United States" means -- that term gets used a lot, to mean the full collection of laws promulgated by the federal government. But the term "law of the United States?" Ooh that's really mooshy. I don't think it has any meaning in the law, certainly not in any precise sense like the phrase "the law of the Commonwealth of Virginia." I think the only meaning for the phrase "law of the United States" is in academic legal philosophy, the structural overview of all 51 jurisdictions--correct me if I'm wrong.

So in my view, as reverted, the lead of this article is incorrect. The second paragraph--in focusing only on the federal government--clashes with the third, which brings in the states as part of the "law of the United States."

I think the third paragraph speaks from the correct perspective--the "law of the United States" is 51 jurisdictions, and the structure that arises out of that dual sovreignty (or triple, if we bring in Indian tribes). I think that perspective should be retrofitted into the first two paragraphs. My draft of November 23 [1], while perhaps not footnoted adequately, was directed at that structural perspective.

DCLawwyer (talk) 13:41, 28 November 2017 (UTC)

I respectfully disagree that the law of the United States cannot be treated as the aggregate of federal and state law. The point of the dual sovereignty inherent in the structure of the Constitution (and the Tenth Amendment) is that every person in the United States is simultaneously bound by both the law of the federal government and the law of their state or territory at the same time. Those laws may originate with separate sovereigns, each sovereign in its own sphere, but from the point of the view of the layperson, all of it is the law they must follow, just as they would have to follow all the laws of a single sovereign in a unitary state. That's what I mean when I say "aggregate." I'll have to dig up some sources on this when I have the time. --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:03, 29 November 2017 (UTC)

User:Coolcaesar --

Read again -- both of my posts, and my proposed lead [2]. It sounds to me like you are not disagreeing. I think we're in full agreement that dual sovereignty is the "theme" for our case, the essential point to communicate. It seems you're also acknowledging my reservation that your proposal of "aggregate" isn't helpful as a way to discuss the 50 states, but I agree that our point is that citizens are simultaneously accountable to two ("aggregate" isn't my favorite word for that aspect of dual sovereignty, but it sounds like we're thinking the same thing).

What I proposed -- and it sounds like you're agreeing -- is that the entire lead be structured around dual sovereignty. With that, the current second paragraph -- which focuses solely on the federal -- is out of place, and should be altered to reflect dual sovereignty.

Does that sound like a correct summary of agreement?

My draft [3] certainly wasn't written by the finger of God on sapphire tablets, and is aching for improvement. But it's one useful approach to framing the lead around dual sovereignty -- there are 51 independent sovereigns, but they share lots of structural similarities and history. I'm sure that's not the only way to lead into dual sovereignty, but it's one proposed approach.

The ball is still in your court, and it sounds like our thinking is parallel.

DCLawwyer (talk) 13:34, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

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us legal system

Us laws are based on roman law. Use of the bible does not imply Christian way is used to make decisions rather that the person has a belief system. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.169.78.191 (talk) 14:46, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Shouldn't this article inform a worldwide audience?

This article appears to be about _federal_ laws, whose scope is far more limited than laws enacted by legislatures of the individual states. But the lay (non-lawyer) reader, or even lawyers in countries whose systems are quite different, may fail to realize some things that it seems it would be useful to state explicitly in the lead section: Most cases before courts of law in this country are not federal but concern matters over which state legislatures have authority and Congress does not. Each state has its own criminal code dealing with things like murder, rape, battery, theft, burglary, fraud, etc. (In sharp contrast with Canada, where all that is federal.) This probably seems like a kindergarten-level point to American lawyers who edit this article, but even intelligent and educated people in other countries reading this may be unaware of it, and within the U.S., the extent to which most non-lawyers understand this is less than ideal, to say the least. Michael Hardy (talk) 17:14, 25 January 2019 (UTC)

That was partially explained under this article's former treatment of state law (most of which was drafted by me). Then some genius (see discussion above) had the incredibly foolish idea of moving most of that material to another article. I am too busy litigating class actions to drag the editor responsible through the time-consuming ArbCom process to obtain appropriate remedies, so that is why this article remains a mess. --Coolcaesar (talk) 03:24, 13 September 2019 (UTC)

Good faith edits by User:VaultNet101.2

I just reverted those edits because it's clear User:VaultNet101.2 is unaware of the debate we had over this issue over five years ago.

This is exactly why I thought User:Int21h's move to separate the detailed state law content into a separate article was a really bad idea. Any decent American lawyer is going to look at this article and immediately realize it's catastrophically incomplete without a summary of the chaos in American state law and how the Restatements, uniform laws, and codification amount to a badly incomplete solution. So those lawyers are going to keep trying to add that information back in.

The fundamental problem is that the topic of American law is irreducible in complexity. Try to reduce it too much and then your summary ends up fatally incomplete. Even the OECD has complained about how American law is too complex and how that drives the cost of legal services through the roof.

The best solution is to merge State law (United States) back into this article. --Coolcaesar (talk) 03:11, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

@Coolcaesar: This article will be swallowed whole if we merge US state law into this article. Their diversity and complexity far outpaces that of the federal government, and merger would invite that incoherence and complexity into this article. It'd be like merging the EU member state law articles into the European Union law article. They are different jurisdictions. The State law (United States) article is a better place to start with such material, and reincorporate it here; this article's relevant section(s) should reflect what is there, and vice versa. int21h (talk · contribs · email) 03:22, 15 November 2019 (UTC)

User:Coolcaesar, Fair enough. I am new to editing Wikipedia but have been a long time obsessive reader of articles. I am a 3L law student and I have noticed that many articles regarding American common law are incomplete, with many core principles missing in many articles. I recently thought I might add some content now that I am comfortable with my content knowledge of American law. I felt that the inclusion of the Restatements was incredibly relevant because they are integral to the way courts apply the common law. They are the closest thing that American common law has to a "book of law," and federal, state, and native courts use them more than any other secondary source. I'm not necessarily trying to argue that they should be included in this article; I'm just giving my reasons for initially adding the paragraph. Although the Restatements are essentially just suggestions, every jurisdiction adopts at least portions of the Restatements as a matter of law. The amount and degree of adoption varies wildly of course. Of course, I am speaking as a humble law student, and I am sure you have a higher expertise than me as an attorney (not sarcasm, if you read it that way). VaultNet101.2 (talk) 22:39, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Vandalism of this page

To whom it may concern,

The opening line of the "Law of the United States" page has been quite clearly vandalized. It reads as follows: The law of the United States comprises many bananas. bananas are great things that have happened in life.

I am not the person to resolve this, lest I produce an edit that makes even less sense than the one above. However, I considered it something of a civic duty to bring attention to it, in the hopes that the next person who is painfully behind schedule on their research paper is not needlessly impeded by such villainy.

To the person who might be capable of fixing this: you are the hero humanity needs, but does not deserve. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.78.52.100 (talk) 01:40, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

This article should be permanently protected

I just caught and reverted some fairly severe vandalism to this article from 3 March 2019 that no one caught. This article should be permanently protected indefinitely from edits from any editor who does not have a well-established account. --Coolcaesar (talk) 01:19, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

Abbreviations in citations

@Coolcaesar: Greetings! Regarding this revert...Wikipedia law articles are not written for lawyers; they are written for a general audience, especially overview articles like this one. There is a general mandate to explain jargon, and this abbreviation was something, even having taken a law class in college, I had to look up. Wikipedia also has the benefit of not being paper, so we can take the space to expand abbreviations that would otherwise be confusing. Thanks, Beland (talk) 01:27, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

But see Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Legal. We follow the "legal citation convention for the jurisdiction that handled the case." The Bluebook consistently abbreviates "rehearing" to "reh'g." (See pages 30 and 501 of the 20th edition.) --Coolcaesar (talk) 19:01, 5 September 2020 (UTC)

Bipartite/tripartite in lead

As found:

In the dual-sovereign system of American federalism (actually tripartite because of the presence of Indian reservations), states are the plenary sovereigns, each with their own constitution, while the federal sovereign possesses only the limited supreme authority enumerated in the Constitution.

References

As modified just now:

In the dual-sovereign system of American federalism, states are the plenary sovereigns, each with their own constitution, while the federal sovereign possesses only the limited supreme authority enumerated in the Constitution (note that on the ground, it is more complete to regard American federalism as tripartite rather than bipartite, with many Indian reservations operating under charter to preserve and maintain distinct legal traditions).

References

I intensely disliked the overtones of "actually" in how it implicitly privileges the formalist method of counting over the historical or pragmatist method of counting. Small exceptions often exist in a grey zone where they are first class from one vantage point, and second class from a different vantage point; to pretend otherwise somehow ignores [edited] that human language embeds in a frightfully complex world in a constant state of incompleteness in nearly all regards.

My principle horror concerning my bold edit is the word "charter". In the Canadian legal context, to discover that the native populations are operating under a distinct charter would be the legal arrangement of least surprise to the armchair brigade loosely following along. I'm probably off my gourd transplanting this term in the American federal context, but I'm sure the next editor who comes along can resolve my phrasing in short order.

Far more important is whether "Indian reservations" should remain the head noun in this construction. Is the reservation structure of indigenous affairs really the proper anchor point for the skinny leg of the triune stool. I highly suspect this can also be refined or improved at the same time. — MaxEnt 16:27, 1 January 2021 (UTC)

That's my text you're editing. The word "charter" reflects a lack of sensitivity to the rights of indigenous peoples and should have been discussed here first. Go read up Indian reservations and Tribal sovereignty in the United States to see why that's offensive; the tribes were already sovereign and did not need to be chartered by anyone. (To be clear, I am not Native American, but my law school is widely known for its Indian law programs, so I had several classmates who were Native Americans and Alaska Natives.)

The United States is often described as a "dual-sovereign" system. I used the word "actually" to signal that there is a third category of sovereigns out there, even if many people often forget about them. --Coolcaesar (talk) 06:22, 2 January 2021 (UTC)

Types of federation

There are two types of federation 1) holding together 2) coming together America like country comes to holding together federation due to his federal type of law and order and other things 2409:4081:79F:3A28:0:0:13A4:B0AC (talk) 10:24, 26 April 2024 (UTC)