How to Cite a U.S. Supreme Court Case in Bluebook Format
The Supreme Court case is the citation lawyers write most — and the one a surprising number get subtly wrong. The formula is simple once you see it laid out, so let’s build it piece by piece, then handle the edge cases that cause trouble in practice.
The basic formula
A full citation to a published Supreme Court decision has five parts: case name, reporter, page, court, and year. For the Court’s own opinions the reporter is the United States Reports (U.S.), and because that reporter implies the court, you drop the court abbreviation from the parenthetical entirely — unlike every other court, which requires an abbreviation.
Notice what’s not there: no “(U.S. 1954)”. The U.S. reporter already identifies the court, so repeating it is redundant — one of the most common mistakes in practice, and one the Bluebook makes explicit at rule 10.4(a).
Parallel citations
Older SCOTUS decisions also appear in the Supreme Court Reporter (S. Ct.) and the Lawyers’ Edition (L. Ed.). Under the Bluebook, practitioners generally cite only the official U.S. reporter and omit the parallels — unless a local court rule requires both. When the U.S. reporter is not yet available, cite to S. Ct. instead.
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Try it free →Pincites
A pincite directs the reader to a specific page within the opinion. Place it after the first page, separated by a comma. If the pincite is the same as the first page, repeat the number — counterintuitive but required, because omitting it signals “no pincite” rather than “page 137.”
Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. 137, 137 (1803). ← pincite equals first page; repeat it
For multi-page spans, abbreviate: “493–95” not “493–495.” Retain the last two digits and any additional digits needed to avoid ambiguity.
Short forms
After a full citation has appeared, subsequent references may use a short form: either Brown, 347 U.S. at 495, or id. at 495 if citing the same source as the immediately preceding footnote. Use the party name that is neither governmental nor geographical — “Brown” works, “United States” does not.
Id. at 495. (same source as immediately preceding cite)
When the case isn’t in U.S. Reports yet
New decisions can take months to appear in the bound U.S. reporter. Until they do, cite to the Supreme Court Reporter (S. Ct.). If even that isn’t available, cite to the slip opinion: case name, docket number, court abbreviation, and date of decision. A placeholder that cannot be located by the reader is worse than none at all.