The following is a short guide on how to find Supreme Court cases and opinions that discuss the Due Process Clause of the United States Constitution using freely available online resources.
The Due Process Clause is found in both the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution. The clauses prohibit arbitrary deprivation of “life, liberty, or property” by the government except as authorized by law. The Due Process Clause is central to many landmark Supreme Court cases and continues to be a controversial concept in constitutional law.
How to find Supreme Court decisions and opinions
Use the Docket Search on the Supreme Court’s website to search pending and decided cases that have been filed at the Supreme Court. Search historic and modern Supreme Court decisions by case name, topic, or author; or search for decisions from current and past justices with the Legal Information Institute’s U.S. Supreme Court Decisions collection. A list of pending Supreme Court cases may be found on Wikipedia. Patrons of the Harris County Robert W. Hainsworth Law Library have access to HeinOnline while onsite in the library, which includes the database, “Preview of United States Supreme Court Cases” from the American Bar Association. This online version “provides comprehensive expert analysis of all cases argued before the Supreme Court prior to the arguments.”
Free online tools to search for case law include FindLaw and Google Scholar. Additionally, Oyez is a free website with case law resources specific to the Supreme Court.
Opinions of the Supreme Court include several types of writing by Supreme Court Justices. The Supreme Court has compiled a list of sources for finding opinions of the Court. Learn how to read U.S. Supreme Court opinions with this guide provided by the American Bar Association. For further information on the publication procedure of Supreme Court opinions, read this previous Ex Libris Juris post.
How to find Supreme Court decisions/opinions on Due Process Clause
Background information on the legal concept of “due process” can be found in legal dictionaries and encyclopedias, such as the Legal Information Institute’s online legal dictionary Wex. The LII also tags landmark Supreme Court cases that address due process into one category: https://www.law.cornell.edu/category/keywords/due_process. While onsite at our Law Library, patrons can also use keyword searching within the HeinOnline “U.S. Supreme Court Library,” which includes “the official U.S. Reports, as well as preliminary prints, slip opinions, and more titles related to the U.S. Supreme Court.”
When searching for Supreme Court case information using an online resource without a specific case in mind, keyword searches are a good way to narrow down the search results. You can find many online research guides created by law libraries on how to do case law research both online and using print resources. The Texas State Law Library, Cornell University Library, and Law Library of Congress all provide research guides on how to do case law research.
Many law reviews and journals have published articles that discuss and analyze Supreme Court cases that address the Due Process Clause. The Harris County Robert W. Hainsworth Law Library now provides remote access to the EBSCO database Legal Source, an extensive collection of full-text legal journals and other research documents. HeinOnline, a legal database available remotely with a library account from the Texas State Law Library and onsite at our Law Library, also provides access to numerous law journals.