6.2.1 NOTE NOUGH CONTEXT

Legend has it that Marie Antoinette once said, “Let them eat cake!” If you don’t know the context of that remark, she sounds like a pretty nice person. She sounds a lot less friendly, however, once you learn that she supposedly said it while looking down at the peasants in the street who were crying for bread.

Keep Marie in mind when you are tempted to drop a pithy quote from an obscure case into the middle of your rule explanation section. If the judge doesn’t know what that court was looking at — i.e., the issue, the rule, and the facts — when it made that statement, he or she can’t begin to understand the significance of the quote without looking the case up. And since most judges don’t have time to read the cases cited in the briefs, the quote may have a negative impact: The judge will be annoyed at being given insufficient or misleading information.

Thus, when using a quotation from a case, be sure you have provided the reader with the type of context mentioned in Section 6.1. Do not drop a quotation into your argument like a chocolate chip into batter:

BAD EXAMPLE

This Court has noted that generalizations “concerning parent-child relations... become less acceptable as the age of the child increase[s].” Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U.S. 380, 382 (1979). Thus, the gender-based generalizations in this case are invalid.

An altered quotation with an unaccompanied citation does not fill the court with confidence about the validity of your argument. Instead, include the details that will give context for the quotation:

GOOD EXAMPLE As far back as 1979, this Court struck down a statute that characterized parent-child relationships between unwed fathers and their children differently from those of unwed mothers. Caban v.

Issue

Disposition

Facts

Reasoning

Quotations can also be used effectively in a parenthetical: As far back as 1979, this Court struck down a statute that characterized parent-child relationships between unwed fathers and their children differently from those of unwed mothers. Caban v. Mohammed, 441 U.S. 380, 382 (1979) (noting that any generalizations would become “less acceptable as a basis for legislative distinctions” as the child grew older) .

Issue

Disposition

Facts

Reasoning

By making a quotation part of a coherent case description, you make it more likely that the quotation will do the job of convincing the court that the case stands for the proposition you say it does.