Primary Authority is The Law

1
Review

• Primary Authority is The Law
• Court Opinions
• Statutes
• Regulations
• Primary Authority may be mandatory
• Binding authority in jurisdiction
• Primary Authority may be persuasive
• Primary authority from other jurisdiction

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Type of authority
Mandatory
Persuasive
Primary (statutes, cases, regs.)
Within the jurisdiction
Outside the jurisdiction
Secondary (everything else)
Never
Always
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Secondary Authority
Review
Review

• Commentary about the law
• Never binding or mandatory

• Provides background information
• Leads you to primary authority

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Types of Secondary Authority

• Encyclopedias

• American Law Reports (ALR's)

• Legal Periodicals

• Treatises

• Restatements

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How To Use Secondary Authority

• Use index or table of contents to find
  references.

• Locate material in main text

• Update both text and primary authority

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Pat, a law student in Georgia (not at Mercer)
went to a party on a Friday night. She drank 12
beers and smoked two cigars. She began to feel
bad, so she decided to walk home. While walking,
a police officer drove by, slowly, looking at
Pat, who wasnt walking very steadily. Pat then
saw a bench by a bus stop, and decided to rest.
The officer drove around the block, stopped by
Pats bench and gave her several sobriety tests
(walking a straight line, standing on one foot,
etc.) Pat didnt do well, and the officer
arrested her for public drunkenness. Can Pat
be convicted for public drunkenness under these
facts?
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research terms
Sloan p.23

• parties (who?)

• places things (what where?)

• potential claims defenses

• relief

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National legal encyclopedias
American Jurisprudence 2d
"AmJur2d"
Corpus Juris Secundum "CJS"
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State legal encyclopedias

• Georgia Jurisprudence (Ga. Jur.)
• Florida Jurisprudence (Fla. Jur.)
• Michies Jurisprudence (Va. W.Va.)
• New York Jurisprudence

Caution Not all states have an encyclopedia!
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(No Transcript)
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Georgia Jurisprudence
Index to Criminal law
General Index
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Ga. Jur. Index to Criminal Law (v.32)
"drunkenness" - see "intoxication"
13
heading "Intoxication"
"Public drunkenness" 3726 - 3727
14
Article on public drunkenness begins at 3726
15
Footnotes 2 4 refer to OCGA 16-11-41(a) a
case
16
Update your research by using the pocket part
supplement in the back of the Criminal Law volume
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Ga. Jur. Pocket Part supplement
date issued
date received by library
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American Jurisprudence 2d "Am Jur 2d"
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(No Transcript)
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Look for the topic on spine of volume - Then look
for section () 32.

Title is Intoxicating Liquors
Article is Drunkenness in Public Places
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Fn 26 Cites to a Georgia case
Fn 17 Cites to ALR annotation
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Update your research with Am Jur pocket part
May 2004 issue date
23
pocket part includes recent Georgia case
24
West's Corpus Juris Secundum - not updated since
May 2002
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American Law Reports ALR ( now in 5th Series
ALR Federal)
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6 volume "General Index"
relevant annotation at "8 ALR 930"
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ALR articles are called Annotations first
page of the annotation
references to other secondary sources
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Index to the annotation
Table of Jurisdictions Represented (Note Ga)
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Scope Note
30
Update annotation with pocket part
31
an additional research reference added
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"Annotation History Table" - end of each index
volume
If "8 ALR 3d 930" is superseded - would appear
here
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National State treatises on Criminal Law