CJS 208 - Criminal Law

Reading a Case Citation

If you need more help reading the citation for a court case, see Milner Library's Reading a Citation tab in the Law and Legal Research guide.

Quick tip: Citations are only a portion of a case's name.

• When you see the case People vs. Ferree, 221 Ill.App.3d 212, 581 N.E.2d 699, 163 Ill.Dec. 545, this is a full citation.
• To find a case, you only need the official citation, not the full citation. See below for an example. 

In the image above, the only portion of this you need is the official citation (in green). Everything else is extraneous information that will confuse the database.

Searching for Case Law with Westlaw

Step 2:

This opens the Cases page. Copy and paste your citation into the search bar at the top of the screen. Make sure that the "cases" tab is selected, rather than "all content." You can then click the "search" button.

Step 3:

This should take you to the page for that unique case.