these are widely available without charge, including the actual Court documents. the Cornell site JB mentions is excellent. Wikipedia typically has a link to the full text of every major case and many minor ones if they have a page for the case (which they usually do). Justia has most Supreme Court and many other Federal court decisions at http://law.justia.com/cases/. and then there is the Court itself, where you can use the general search box or the fuller search here: http://www.supremecourt.gov/search_center.aspx. as long as you have the names of the litigating parties it's easy to find the whole text. I think currently they have all decisions from the late 1990s as separate PDFs, and earlier ones are contained in bound volumes, so you need to download the year's volume for the case you have and then search the litigant names. On Thu, Jun 2, 2016 at 2:36 AM, jim bell wrote:

There is a good site for Supreme Court cases: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/home

A good case on jurisdiction is https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/96-643 "Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Environment". (1998) From the syllabus (which is not part of the actual decision):

"(b) This Court declines to endorse the “doctrine of hypothetical jurisdiction,” under which several Courts of Appeals have found it proper to proceed immediately to the merits question, despite jurisdictional objections, at least where (1) the merits question is more readily resolved, and (2) the prevailing party on the merits would be the same as the prevailing party were jurisdiction denied. That doctrine carries the courts beyond the bounds of authorized judicial action and thus offends fundamental separation-of-powers principles. In a long and venerable line of cases, this Court has held that, without proper jurisdiction, a court cannot proceed at all, but can only note the jurisdictional defect and dismiss the suit. See, e.g., *Capron *v. *Van Noorden *, 2 Cranch 126; *Arizonans for Official English *v. *Arizona, *520 U. S. ___, ___. *Bell *v. *Hood *, *supra *; *National Railroad Passenger Corp. *v. *National Assn. of Railroad Passengers, *414 U. S. 453 http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt//text/414/453; *Norton *v. *Mathews, *427 U. S. 524 http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt//text/427/524;*Secretary of Navy *v. *Avrech, *418 U. S. 676 http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt//text/418/676 *(per curiam); United States *v. *Augenblick, *393 U. S. 348 http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt//text/393/348; *Philbrook *v. *Glodgett, *421 U. S. 707 http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt//text/421/707; and *Chandler * v. *Judicial Council of Tenth Circuit, *398 U. S. 74 http://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt//text/398/74, distinguished. For a court to pronounce upon a law’s meaning or constitutionality when it has no jurisdiction to do so is, by very definition, an *ultra vires *act. Pp. 8–17."

Jim Bell

------------------------------ *From:* Zenaan Harkness *To:* cypherpunks@cpunks.org *Sent:* Wednesday, June 1, 2016 10:32 PM *Subject:* How to download the full ruling of USA Supreme Court cases?

Can this be done?

For example, this quote and "case" reference, should have some context: "Jurisdiction, once challenged, cannot be assumed and must be decided." [Maine v. Thiboutot, 100 S. Ct. 250]

How do I find the document containing that quote?

That quote and reference can be found by google on many sites in many documents, but only as the quote - the full source document/ ruling would provide the context, which would be more useful.

Some examples of URLs with the above quote (besides many others):

http://freedom-school.com/lewis-mohr/bowden-petition-and-challenge-to-jurisd... http://www.nationallibertyalliance.org/how-beat-any-court-case http://thegetjusticecoalition.blogspot.com/2007/05/cp-6.html