Court Case

Court cases aren't like speeches or novels—they're not exactly scintillating reading. They aren't written to be delivered to an audience and they don't make good beach reading. (Shmoop does love to bring along a good legal brief while in the Bahamas, but we're wonky like that.)

Think of court cases as more like an official record. They're a description of the issue (or issues); an explanation of the court's decision; a whole lot of analysis, research, and historical reference; and then some opinions against the decision. The Chief Justice doesn't come out on the Supreme Court's front steps and read the whole thing to a crowd—the text just gets filed away for future reference or research, or to be studied by scholars like you.

So what do court cases like Miranda v. Arizona look like?

• They start with what's called a Syllabus. In the legal world of judges and juries, a Syllabus is an overview of the whole case. 
• Then we've got the Opinion, usually written by the Chief Justice if in the majority. If the Chief is in the minority, then the most senior Associate Justice writes the Opinion. 
• After the Opinion comes a few Dissents (opinions against the majority decision). If no one dissents, then there is no Dissent section, because, duh. Typically, there are between one and three dissent sections in a Supreme Court text. Few cases are decided unanimously.

Supreme Court cases need to be thorough. Like, painfully thorough. Remember, they're establishing iron-clad precedent for future cases that the lower courts will decide, so the Justices have to be really clear about how they arrived at the decision and what, if any, dissenting opinions were raised.

How it Breaks Down

Syllabus

This is the overview of the whole text. It will usually tell you what the case is about, why it's a big deal, what the court decided, and what the new rule is.

In Miranda v. Arizona, the Syllabus is pretty short and includes details on what Ernesto Miranda did, the fact that the Court is looking at this case in order to bring consistency to the rules of police questioning, and the new set of statements that will be called the Miranda Warning.

Opinion

Written by the Chief Justice Warren, this section explains in detail what the court decided, and why they made that decision. The Opinion usually builds a base of background knowledge through citing previous court cases; defends the court's decision with examples and explanations; and then very clearly sets out the new rule(s).

In Miranda v. Arizona, the Opinion is the longest part of the text (it includes five subsections) and goes into detail about what happened to Miranda and what other court cases have said about similar issues. It lays out the new rules for police to follow (the Miranda Warning), and explains how these new rules will improve America's justice system.

Dissent

If any judges on the court voted against the majority decision, this is where they get to be heard. Each dissenting judge gets their own section (if they want it), where they can write to their heart's content about why they think they're right and the majority of the court is wrong. It's super important to note that nothing these dissenting judges say becomes law, or has any real effect on the new rules. It's kind of like the judge saying "let it be known that I did not agree with this."

Harlan, White, and Clark all wrote dissents for Miranda v. Arizona (although Harlan's and White's are the main dissents; Clark's is rather short). In Miranda, the dissents mostly focus on the fact that the Miranda Warning actually helps people who might have just committed a crime. All these rights just get in the way of the police putting bad guys behind bars.