1. How to Brief a Case
In a course like Constitutional Law, and in many other legal courses, it is imperative to be able to brief, or summarize, the opinions in court cases in order to understand and retain them in a useful manner. A brief is simply a tool that will allow the person preparing it to distill the most important information and put it in a more manageable format. Some professors insist on certain requirements, but most briefs should contain the following:
Case Citation — see section in Chapter 1 about citing a case; you will use the full, official case citation here.
Facts — here put in the necessary facts of the case, eliminating a lot of the non-essential information.
(OPTIONAL) Procedural History – while not required by all professors, the Procedural History is critical to understanding of the Issue. Whether or not included in a brief, the case reader will have to decipher Procedural History in order to figure out what’s happening. For new briefers, it makes sense to include this for full comprehension.
Issue(s) – this is the big question (or questions) that the Court has been asked to answer in the case.
Holding — this is the (short) answer to the question(s) asked in the Issue section
Rationale — this is the explanation for the Court’s answer in the Holding
So, for a full example, we will brief the case of Safford v. Redding a summary of which follows this chapter.
Step One: Read!!!
Read over the whole case first, maybe making notes in the margins, but don’t write out any of your elements yet (except maybe the citation…..)
Safford Unified School District #1, et al v. Redding
557 U.S.364 (2009)
The “U.S.” in the heading shows you this is a U.S. Supreme Court case….that may be helpful later on. Also, you can see by the words “et al” in the caption that there is more than one party connected to the appellant in this case.
Step Two: Getting the relevant Facts
Now that you’ve read the case, go through and pull out the relevant facts. This is almost always much less than what the Court puts into the opinion (for ex. relevant fact is “13 year old student ordered to remove clothing by school officials in search for prohibited drugs”. Probably a non-relevant fact would be “Assistant principal of school went to April Redding’s Math class on a day in October 2003 and asked Savana to go to his office”) Don’t just regurgitate what is written; put down the facts that are important to the issue – and make sure you’ve got enough in there to trigger your own memory (if there’s a weird fact that will make you remember the case, throw it in).
For Redding, consider:
Facts: School officials suspect 13 year old student April Redding of distributing prohibited drugs at school. Officials search her backpack and outer clothing; after finding nothing, subject her to strip search; no drugs found. Parents sue school officials individually as well as the school district.
Sometimes it’s helpful to hold off putting down facts until after the issue is determined; it is often wise to go back and reconsider the relevant facts once the issue(s) has been identified.
Step Three: Procedural History
This can be difficult, and may require multiple readings to determine how the case got to the point it is at (remember our lesson on the courts and order of a case). The appellate courts always review the immediately lower court’s decision, so if the case is a NY Court of Appeals case, it will be looking at the decision of the Appellate Division, while the Appellate Division will review trial court decisions. It is also helpful to keep in mind who has reason to complain about the lower court’s decision – if criminal charges had been dismissed at a lower court, it is probably not the defendant who is unhappy with that. Likewise, if the trial court convicted a defendant, the prosecution would not be appealing (and, of course, cannot). Remember to look at any related cases, especially when you’re looking at the differences in NY and federal law interpretation. That would be procedural history, which some people like to put in the facts, others like as a separate heading.
Procedural History: Redding brought suit in federal District Court, which found the search was not illegal. Redding appealed this finding, and it was affirmed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. However, the Circuit Court of Appeals later reversed that decision and found the search to be unreasonable and, since it was a clear right of Redding, found that the assistant principal had no immunity. This was appealed by the defendant Safford Unified School District to the U.S. Supreme Court (note this is why the case title is Safford v. Redding – rather than Redding v. Safford – it was Redding who started the action but the party who was unhappy at the Circuit Court of Appeals was the school district and the assistant principal, so they appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Step Four: Determining the Issue(s)
Many times, the Court will state the issue somewhere in the body of the opinion, often right at the beginning, sometimes right after the facts. Look for clue words like “…we are asked to determine….” or “the issue we must decide…” or “the question we must answer….”
In Redding, it is set out right in the beginning (at least in this version; in the official case there may be other material included). For briefing purposes you can condense it, make it into a question:
Issue: Was the search of 13 year old Redding a violation of the Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and seizure?
But, wait! You may not be finished here. Often, there is more than one issue. In this case, not only are we wondering whether the search itself is unconstitutional, the plaintiff also brought suit against the individual school officials who conducted the search. We also need to know whether those school officials are immune from liability if we discover that it was an illegal search. So, for the second question:
Issue #2: If the search was illegal, do school officials acting in their official capacity have immunity from personal liability?
You can frame these issues in a number of different ways, but try to keep it as a “yes” or “no” question, which will make it easier to come up with ……..
Step Five: The Holding
This is where you tell what the Court ruled- it’s usually a yes or no answer to the Issue questions —
Holding #1: Yes, the search of Redding was a violation of her Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and, therefore, was an Illegal search.
Holding #2: Yes, school officials do have some immunity and in this case they cannot be held personally liable.
Note here that often when there are multiple Issues, an answer to one may mean that the Court never even reaches the subsequent questions. Here, for example, if the Court had ruled that the search was legal, the question of whether the individual school officials could be held liable would not be addressed- if there was no wrongdoing, there would be nothing they could be liable for. Depending on the issue (and the Court) the moot point may be addressed by the Court in order to settle a debate.
Step Six: The Rationale
This is where you explain the Holding, usually more difficult and more important than even the holding itself!
Rationale: Even intrusive searches will be tolerated as long as the suspicion is reasonable enough to justify the amount of intrusion. Here there was no indication of immediate danger to the student body, nor any reason to suspect that the student had illegal drugs in her underwear. The combination of these made the strip search illegal. However, the school officials do enjoy immunity while acting in their official capacity and so are not personally liable.
So, putting it all together, here is the brief for Safford Unified School District #1, et al v. Redding:
Safford Unified School District #1, et al v. Redding
557 U.S.364 (2009)
Facts: School officials suspect 13 year old student April Redding of distributing prohibited drugs at school. Officials search her backpack and outer clothing; after finding nothing, they subject her to strip search by school nurse; no pills found. Parents sue school officials and school district.
Procedural History: Redding brought suit in federal District Court, which found the search was not illegal. This was affirmed by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. However, the Circuit Court of Appeals later reversed that decision and found the search to be unreasonable, and, since it was a clear right of Redding, the assistant principal had no immunity. The assistant principal and the school district appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Issue#1: Was the search of 13 year old Redding a violation of her Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search?
Issue #2: If the search was in fact illegal, do school officials acting in their official capacity, have immunity from personal liability?
Holding #1: Yes, the search of Redding was a violation of her Fourth Amendment right against unreasonable search and, therefore, an illegal search.
Holding #2: Yes, school officials do have some immunity and in this case cannot be held personally liable.
Rationale: Even intrusive searches will be tolerated as long as the suspicion is reasonable enough to justify the amount of intrusion. Here there was no indication of immediate danger to the student body, nor any reason to suspect the student had illegal drugs in her underwear. The combination of these made the strip search illegal. However, the school officials do enjoy immunity and so are not personally liable.
