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Cite-Checker's Guide:  Constitutions and Statutes

Constitutions        
Session Laws Federal State    
Codes Federal State Updating Historical
Statutes by popular name
Internet sources for statutes

CONSTITUTIONS
Constitutions are usually printed at the beginning of the official and unofficial code/statutes for a jurisdiction.

SESSION LAWS
Session laws are a chronological compilation of statutes. They are printed in the order of passage for a given session of the legislature.

FEDERAL Session Laws
Statutes at Large. The official source for citation and source for historical research is the United States Statutes at Large (abbreviated "Stat."). At the end of each session of Congress, public laws are published here in chronological order. The United States Statutes at Large is the  authoritative text of federal laws, published by GPO, and is thus the preferred source for cite checking public laws.
B1  KF50 .U5.

  • Example: Pub. L. No. 105-30, 111 Stat. 248 (1997). Public Law 105-30 was the 30th law passed by the 105th Congress. It was published in volume 111 of the United States Statutes at Large, at page 248. Public Law is also abbreviated "P.L."

U.S.C.C.A.N. United States Code Congressional & Administrative News
USCCAN is unofficial; it is published by West. It consists of bound volumes that cumulate monthly soft-cover pamphlets for each session of Congress. The set includes volumes that reprint the Statutes at Large, and legislative history volumes that contain a report, possibly two, on the enacted bill, and cites to the Congressional Register, for significant public laws; not comprehensive, but a useful starting point.
Furman Hall, Atrium, Golieb     NYUL KA-A 31a

New public laws are called slip laws. Each law is individually published and assigned a distinct number. New laws are available in:

  • U.S.C.C.A.N.  United States Code Congressional & Administrative News.  Monthly soft-cover pamphlets are later cumulated in bound volumes for each session.
    Furman Hall, Atrium, Golieb   NYUL KA-A 31a
  • U.S.C.S.  United States Code Service Advance Service. Monthly pamphlets published as supplements to USCS.
    Atrium  KF62 1972 L38
  • U.S.C.A.  United States Code Annotated Statutory Supplements. Monthly pamphlets published as supplements to USCA.
    MRR, Atrium, Furman Hall  KF62.5
  • LexisNexis and WESTLAW both contain current and retrospective public laws.
  • Thomas: Legislative Information on the Internet from the Library of Congress, at http://thomas.loc.gov/home/.
    Public Laws by Law Number, back to 1973. Summaries only for earlier Congresses, PDFs of slip laws for recent Congresses.

STATE Session Laws
State session laws (also called "chapter laws") are published chronologically like federal session laws.

New York The session laws of New York are entitled McKinney's Session Laws of New York. This set is a chronological compilation of New York laws, published in order of passage for a given session of the legislature. The Bluebook specifies that New York session laws be cited to McKinney's Session Laws of New York.
MRR   NYUL KA-N7 23  
Media Center (microfiche)

  • Example: L. 1980, c. 715. This is chapter 715 of the laws of 1980, the 715th law passed by the New York Legislature in 1980.

Other States  Golieb Room, alphabetically by state. Earlier session laws will be on microform in the Media Center.

CODES
Codification is the process of arranging statutes by subject. The United States Code, for example, is arranged in 50 titles, each representing a distinct subject area, e.g., Title 18 contains the laws on criminal law and procedure. State codes are arranged in the same way, though the names given to individual titles may vary.

FEDERAL Code: The official source for citation
U.S.C. United States Code. Reprinted every six years (the current edition is 2000) and updated in the interim with annual bound cumulative supplements, which generally run about two years late.
BI  KF62  
Media Center (microfiche)

  • Example: 5 U.S.C. sec. 552a. "5" indicates the title, "552a" is the section number.

U.S.C. is the authoritative source for citing codified federal laws. In practice, however, most researchers rely on one of the unofficial codes because they are updated more often, have superior subject indexing and tables, and are annotated with digests of cases that have interpreted statutory provisions. The unofficial codes are supplemented with annual pocket parts or soft-cover annual supplements, and monthly updating pamphlets.

FEDERAL Code: Unofficial codes

  • U.S.C.A. United States Code Annotated
    MRR, Reserve, Furman Hall, Atrium  KF62.5
    Media Center (microfiche)
  • U.S.C.S. United States Code Service
    Atrium  KF62 1972 L38 

STATE Codes
State codes (called "statutes" in some jurisdictions) vary greatly, but most are now published by commercial publishers and not by the states themselves.

New York. The New York Code is entitled McKinney's Consolidated Laws of New York Annotated. McKinney's is updated by annual pocket parts or annual soft-cover supplements, and monthly pamphlets.
MRR, Reserve, Media Center  NYUL KA-N7 312 M3

  • Example: C.P.L.R. sec. 2219(a). New York statutes are cited by the name of the title, followed by the section number. In this example, "C.P.L.R." is the abbreviation for the "Civil Practice Law and Rules." A list of all the titles and their abbreviations can be found in the blue pages of the Bluebook and in the front of the index volumes of McKinney's. The list in McKinney's also tells you the volume number that contains the title in question (e.g., the C.P.L.R. is in the group of volumes marked 7B). 

Other States Golieb Room, alphabetically by state; Media Center for microfiche.

UPDATING: finding amendments to federal and state statutes

  • U.S.C. Consult the bound annual supplement for your title and section. E.g., the latest edition of USC is the 2000 edition. To update, consult the 2001 and 2002 bound supplements. Once you've used those you must go to the slip laws, preferably on Thomas or GPO Access.
  • Unofficial federal codes are updated more often.
    USCA or USCS. Consult the annual pocket part or soft-cover annual supplement for your title and section. Then use the USCS monthly pamphlets for all subsequent months not covered by the annual pocket part or soft-cover supplement. The monthly pamphlets of USCCAN update USCA.
  • Commercially published state codes generally are updated in the same way as USCA and USCS (annual pocket parts or soft-cover annual supplements, plus more frequent pamphlets). State-published codes may vary in the type of supplementation they provide.
  • For even more recent developments (but the text of the law may be available in an electronic form only):
    WESTLAW or LexisNexis
    Legislative websites, such as the U.S. House of Representatives, the U.S. Senate, GPO Access, and Thomas; see Legal Resources on the library Web page.
    News sources

HISTORICAL Codes

  • U.S.C. back to 1926 (with gaps) in microform. Media Center
  • U.S.C.A., back to 1927 in microform. Media Center
  • States:  McKinney's Consolidated Laws of N.Y. is available in microform back to 1916, as well as an extensive collection of other states' superseded statutes (Media Center).  

FINDING STATUTES BY POPULAR NAME
Examples:
USA Patriot Act
Securities Exchange Act of 1934

  • United States Code: table in back of the volume containing Title 50
  • United States Code Annotated: table at the end of the soft-cover annual index, after "Z"
  • United States Code Service: soft-cover annual Tables volume
  • Shepard's Acts and Cases by Popular Name, Federal and State
    MRR
  • Index to Legal Periodicals  Search by the name of the act, and you will get not only a list of articles about the act but its full citation as well. ILP is also available in bound volumes in Furman Hall at NYUL K9.I5, and on LexisNexis and WESTLAW.
  • WESTLAW >Table of Contents>USCA>Popular Name Table.
  • For state acts by popular name, look for them in the alphabetical subject index to the state code, or see if the state code has a table of acts by popular name.

INTERNET SOURCES FOR STATUTES

  

 
This page was updated August 16, 2007

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