Throughout this book you will see references and citations to legal sources such as statutes and cases. Many of these primary sources are available for free online, and we encourage interested readers to seek them out. In order to assist the reader, we present an overview of the citation format used in this book and in most legal writing, the Bluebook.1 Unfortunately, this overview is necessarily incomplete because the Bluebook format is rather complicated and resists summarization.2 Fortunately, there are free resources available online that explain the format in more detail.3
Cases are generally cited in this form: [Case Name], [Volume Number] [Reporter] [Page Number] ([Court] [Year]). For example, United States v. Carroll Towing Co., 159 F.2d 169 (2d Cir. 1947) shows that the name of the case was United States v. Carroll Towing Co. and it was published in the 159th volume of the 2nd edition of the Federal Reporter beginning on page 169. We can also see that it was a decision of the Second Circuit Court of Appeals made in 1947.
When a particular portion of the opinion is cited, the specific page numbers will follow the first page number. For example, United States v. Carroll Towing Co., 159 F.2d 169, 170–71 (2d Cir. 1947). Sometimes the court may be inferred from the reporter, as in United States Supreme Court cases, which are published in the United States Reports, abbreviated “U.S.” For example, Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). Many state supreme courts (e.g., California and New York) have similar official reports.
Unfortunately, citations to statutes (particularly state statutes) are less regular, but most of the statutory citations in this book are to the United States Code. The general form is [Title] [Statutory Code] [Section]. For example, 18 U.S.C. § 1111 is Title 18 of the United States Code, Section 1111.
Most of the cases cited in this book may be found online via Google Scholar.4 Federal statutes can be found online from multiple sources.5 State statutes are typically available on the website of the state legislature in question. For other kinds of citations and sources, see Professor Peter Martin’s guide, discussed in footnote 3 or the Bluebook itself. Readers with a further interest should contact their local law library or an attorney.
The Bluebook does not provide a citation format for comic books, so we have followed the citation format created by Britton Payne for the Fordham Intellectual Property, Media, and Entertainment Law Journal. 6 This format has been used in other published works 7 and we think it captures all of the important information about a particular comic book. The general form of the citation is: Creative Contributors, Story Title, COMIC BOOK TITLE (VOLUME NUMBER) [Issue Number] (Publisher Cover Date Month and Year). For brevity we typically only list the writer rather than the full panoply of creative contributors.
Consecutive citations to the same source are typically abbreviated as “Id.” This is Latin for idem, which means “the same.” To find the source referred to, just go back a few footnotes until you find a regular citation.
1. THE BLUEBOOK: A UNIFORM SYSTEM OF CITATION (Columbia Law Review Ass’n et al. eds., 19th ed. 2010).
2 The current edition of the Bluebook, the nineteenth, is 511 pages long. As well-known federal circuit judge Richard Posner has said, the Bluebook “is a monstrous growth, remote from the functional need for legal citation forms, that serves obscure needs of the legal culture and its student subculture….I am put in mind of Mr. Kurtz’s dying words in Heart of Darkness—‘The horror! The horror!’” Richard A. Posner, The BluebookBlues, 120 YALE L.J. 850, 851–52 (2011) reviewing THE BLUEBOOK: A UNIFORM SYSTEM OF CITATION [Columbia Law Review Ass’n et al. eds., 19th ed. 2010]).
3 See, e.g., Peter W. Martin, Introduction to Basic Legal Citation, http://www.law.cornell.edu/citation/.
4 http://scholar.google.com (select “Legal opinions and journals” and enter the case citation).
5 http://www.gpoaccess.gov/uscode/index.xhtml and http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text are two useful sources.
6 Britton Payne, Comic Book Legal Citation Format, 16 FORDHAM INTELL. PROP. MEDIA & ENT. L.J. 1017 (2005-06), available at http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1358&context=iplj
7 See, e.g., William A. Hilyerd, Hi Superman, I’m a Lawyer: A Guide to Attorneys (& Other Legal Professionals) Portrayed in American Comic Books: 1910-2007, 15 WIDENER L. REV. 159 (2009).