Inside the Supreme Court

Petition to Decision

Papers of Supreme Court Justices on Civil Rights Cases

David Achtenberg

Professor & Law Foundation Scholar

UMKC School of Law

Kansas City, MO 64110-2499

816-235-2382

AchtenbergD@umkc.edu

Document Sources

Original Document Sources

Determining Original Image Location

The documents in this web page were photographed from originals found in the private papers of the Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, located as follows:  Justice Blackmun:  The Harry A. Blackmun Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC Finding Aid Justice Brennan:  The William J. Brennan, Jr. Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC Finding Aid Justice Marshall:  The Thurgood Marshall Papers, Library of Congress, Washington, DC Finding Aid   Justice Powell The Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Papers, Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Archive Washington & Lee University School of Law Lexington, VA Finding Aid   Justice White: The Byron R. White Papers Library of Congress, Washington, DC Finding Aid The unfailing courtesy and outstanding assistance of the Manuscript Reference Librarians at the Library of Congress, particularly Bruce Kirby, and of John Jacobs at the Lewis F. Powell, Jr. Archives are gratefully acknowledged.    Stephanie Outlaw, George Ngengwe, and Sarah Liesen provided outstanding research assistance in connection with this site.  LaDonna McCullough, Tamara Shinn, and Gloria Herron worked tirelessly to convert files into more readable form.  Finally, Sharon Kennedy took a week from her active law practice to help her alma mater and old professor in his research at the Library of Congress.  My sincere thanks to all of them.  Without their help, this website could not have been created. Most of the documents from the Byron White papers were originally photographed by Professor Lynda Dodd, the Joseph Flom Professor of Legal Studies at CCNY, and her research assistants, as part or her ongoing scholarship on the history of Section 1983.  Her generous permission to convert those photographs to pdfs and to use them on this website is gratefully acknowledged.

The document files you view on this website are pdf versions of digital photographic copies of the original documents found in the sources described to the left.  The image storage system automatically assigned an image code to each image that indicated the collection, box, file and page at which it was found.  For example, a memo given the original image number WJB437F60073 was found in the William J. Brennan Collection, in Box 437 File 6 and was the 73rd page in that file. (Note that the last four digits indicate the page number.  As a result, a number like LFP189F100002, indicates the second page of Box 189 File 10, not File 1.)   In the pdf document, the image number of the first page appears as part of the pdf file name.   (See red underlining below.)  If the document has more than one page, the image numbers of each page appear as bookmark names.  (See red arrow below.) Most of the documents from the Byron R. White Papers were photographed using a different storage and numbering system.  As a result, the pdf copies of those documents indicate the box number where the original can be found, but not the file or page number.  For example, pdf document BRW478Fxx1429 can be found in Box 478 of the Byron White Papers but its designation does not indicate the file or page number within that box.