How to Cite Statutes and Legal Cases
There are differing opinions about how best to cite statues and legal cases. Always check with your professor. When writing academic papers, the traditional APA approach is to cite federal and state statutes within the text such as:
The 4th Amendment protects "... people from the government improperly taking property, papers, or people, without a valid warrant based on probable cause (U.S. Constitution)."
The National Environmental Policy Act (1969) established the Council on Environmental Quality. The Council ensures...
In § 18.2-279 of the Virginia Criminal Code (2009), the penalties for discharging firearms within or at a building or dwelling house are outlined. These include...
For more see the University of Nebraska-Kearney Library's page for Citing Government Documents.
When citing legal cases in academic papers, it is useful to keep the narrative flow by italicizing the case name and use a footnote to provide the full case citation like this:
District of Columbia v. Heller2 is a recent case involving the tension between the 2nd amendment 'right to bear arms' and the public safety interest in gun control.
2 See Dist. of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 290 (2008)
If you are citing material on a specific page in the case or directly quoting material, a "pinpoint" cite should be used to specify the page number of the material. A page number is then added to the citation. In the following example, the page number is pg. 295:
In District of Columbia v. Heller,3 the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep firearms in the home.
3 See Dist. of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 290, 295 (2008).