Many thanks to Elliot, George and Ellen for these answers to my question
regarding which edition to cite to for the USC. They are worth
sharing......
_____________________________________________________
Hi, Claire!
Bluebook only cares about the publication date of the BOOK that contains
the most current version of the code section. When I'm working with law
students, I usually tell them to determine the date of the last
amendment. For the titles you've listed below, the 2006 version of the
official code is now available online, so you could use 2006 as the
year, so long as the relevant sections were not amended in 2007, 2008,
or 2009. For anything amended after 2006, I usually recommend that the
students cite to the U.S.C.A. or U.S.C.S. book or supplements.
Ellen L. Jones
Reference Librarian
University of Iowa Law Library
374 Boyd Law Building
Iowa City, Iowa 52242
(319) 335-6829 Fax (319) 335-9039
ellen-jones@uiowa.edu
_________________________________________________
I can't get into all of your questions but I do know that both Titles 11
and 15 have been updated to 2006.
George Butterfield
Legal Reference Librarian
Creighton Univ. School of Law Library
2500 California Plaza
Omaha, NE 68178
Office phone: 402-280-2243
Fax: 402-280-2244
email: GeorgeButterfield@creighton.edu
__________________________________________________
Claire,
Titles 1 through 35 of the 2006 edition of the U.S. Code have been
published in book form. Titles 1 through 41 of the 2006 edition are
available on the web site of the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House
of Representatives (the publisher of the U.S. Code) -
http://uscode.house.gov/.
All 50 titles of the U.S. Code are statutory and citable. The question
of positive law vs. non-positive law comes into play when there is a
conflict between the version in the U.S. Code and the version in the
Statutes at Large. Substantive conflicts between the two versions are
extremely rare.
For more material on the U.S. Code, you might want to look at
* http://uscode.house.gov/about/info.shtml
* http://thomas.loc.gov/home/lawsmade.bysec/publication.html#usc
<http://thomas.loc.gov/home/lawsmade.bysec/publication.html>
A fairly detailed (86 page) account of the production of the U.S. Code
can be found in
Information Process Study Report: Production of
the United States Code, House Information Systems, Committee on House
Administration, U.S. House of Representatives, HIS doc. no. DN-1052,
February 6, 1981
Some of the specifics in that report have changed since 1981, but much
of it is still valid. If anyone would like an electronic copy of the
report, I would be happy to send you one.
Elliot
Elliot Chabot, esq.
Chief for Web Design and Standards Compliance
CAO Web Solutions Branch
U.S. House of Representatives
H2-646 Ford House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-6165
(202) 226-6456
_____________________________________
Can someone tell me how to accurately cite the year in a U.S, Code
citation.
I have several cites for which we are unsure of the date to be cited.
Documentation on the GPO website states that only some of the Titles
have been officially published in 2006 edition and should therefore
bear that year as part of the citation
for example - 11 USC 365e (2006)
We are interested in:
11 USC 365e
11 USC 101
11 USC 560
11 USC 561 a(5)
15 USC 77a
15 USC 78c
The Blue Book is rather vague on this and the GPO website does list
that:
Of the 50 titles, only 23 have been enacted into
positive (statutory) law. These titles are 1, 3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 11, 13,
14, 17, 18, 23, 28, 31, 32, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 44, 46, and 49. When
a title of the Code was enacted into positive law, the text of the title
became legal evidence of the law. Titles that have not been enacted into
positive law are only prima facie evidence of the law. In that case, the
Statutes at Large still govern.
If this is still current and Title 15 is not included in this list,
should we still site to the older 2000 version or to the Statute?
I also have the 3rd edition of "ALWD Citation Manual", but it was
published in 2006 and states that the 2000 edition is still current.
Perhaps someone can refer me to a good source for a detailed explanation
of how the code is updated and how to cite to it.
Claire Campbell
Library Manager
Patton Boggs LLP
214-758-3533
ccampbell@pattonboggs.com
DISCLAIMER:
This e-mail message contains confidential, privileged information intended solely for the addressee. Please do not read, copy, or disseminate it unless you are the addressee. If you have received it in error, please call us (collect) at (202) 457-6000 and ask to speak with the message sender. Also, we would appreciate your forwarding the message back to us and deleting it from your system. Thank you.
This e-mail and all other electronic (including voice) communications from the sender's firm are for informational purposes only. No such communication is intended by the sender to constitute either an electronic record or an electronic signature, or to constitute any agreement by the sender to conduct a transaction by electronic means. Any such intention or agreement is hereby expressly disclaimed unless otherwise specifically indicated. To learn more about our firm, please visit our website at http://www.pattonboggs.com.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Jan 30 2009 - 07:45:46 PST