Reply #31: I made a mistake, Dred Scott is only the Third Longest,

[happyslug]

From what I can tell on the net the following is the top five rulings in term of number of pages:

Through the Bell Telephone cases took up a whole Volume of US Supreme Court Reports in 1888) for a total of 556 pages. This case is NOT general counted, for it was several cases the court tied together, thus the length:
http://supreme.justia.com/us/126/1/index.html

Buckley v. Valeo (1975) run 294 Pages
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0424_0001_ZS.html

McCONNELL, UNITED STATES SENATOR, et al. v. FEDERAL ELECTION COMMISSION et al - 540 U.S. 93 (2003), runs at 272 pages.

Dred Scott v Sanford (1857) run only 241 pages
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0060_0393_ZS.html

Furman vs Georgia (1972) run 233 pages.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0408_0238_ZS.html

Now, lets be honest, modern Printers tend to print a lot less words per page for example see the following for a PDF version of US Reports Volume 540. McConnell vs Federal Election Commission is a 540 volume case:
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/boundvolumes/540bv.pdf

Now compared that to this PDF version of Dred Scott, this is NOT from volume 60 of US Supreme Court Reports Volume 60 but someone who either typed it in or scanned it in. The print is about the same but notice the Margins are more "Normal" then in the Volume 540 PDF version of the actual US Supreme Court Decision, it also runs 267 pages NOT the 241 in the actual volume it was printed in:
http://www.sdpb.org/EducationalServicesGuide/etvprograms/pdf/ConstitutionHISTORICAL%20DOCUMENTS/Dred%20Scott%20v.%20Sanford.pdf

What is really needed is someone to do a word count on the above opinions to find out which is truly the longest, maybe someone has done it but I can NOT find it on the net.


Number of words in opinions have doubled since the 1950s:
http://www.abajournal.com/news/article/u.s._supreme_court_sets_record_for_longest_opinions_ever