The American JudiciaryBaldwin, Simeon E. (Simeon Eben)
History
The American Judiciary
Baldwin, Simeon E. (Simeon Eben)
Courts -- United States; Law -- United States -- History
On the whole the prevailing sentiment is that the reasons for
repressing some are stronger than those for publishing all
judicial opinions. It will be few only that, under any
circumstances, will be omitted. The leading lawyers in every
State are expected to run over, if they do not read, every case
in every new volume of its reports. Every case dropped lightens
this task. It helps to keep indexes of reports and digests of
reports and legal treatises within reasonable limits. It cuts
into an accumulating mass of material, most of which must, in any
event, so far as points of law are concerned, be a mere
repetition of twice-told tales, that is becoming so vast in the
United States as to becloud rather than illuminate whoever seeks
to know what American law really is.
If reporters will not select and discriminate between adjudged
cases publishers can and will. Many sets have been prepared and
issued in recent years of selected cases on all subjects taken
from the official reports of all the States. Their professed aim
has been to include all worth preserving. In fact, they have
naturally been guided to a considerable extent by commercial
considerations. To every lawyer the leading cases in his own
State are of the first importance. He is not likely to buy any
compilation in which a number of these do not appear, even if
intrinsically, as statements of law, they may be of no great
value. Hence in the collections in question the rule of
selection is often the rule of three, and they are apt to contain
a certain proportion of the decisions of every State.
The leading sets are the "American Decisions," running from
1760[Footnote: Long after the publication of Kirby's Reports in
1784, some unofficial reports were published of cases decided in
colonial courts prior to any which he included.] to 1869; the
"American Reports," from 1869 to 1886; the "American State
Reports," from 1886 to the present time, which three sets include
over two hundred and fifty volumes and nearly 40,000 opinions;
and the "Lawyers' Reports Annotated," now extending over more
than sixty volumes, the first of which was published in 1888, and
contains no cases reported prior to the preceding year.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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