Talk:Foster v. Chatman

A fact from Foster v. Chatman appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 3 June 2016 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that despite the U.S. Supreme Court holding in Foster v. Chatman that prosecutors purposefully discriminated against black jurors in his trial, Timothy Foster's death sentence might not be overturned?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2016/June. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Foster v. Chatman.

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A few brief editorial suggestions[edit]

Once again, I want to thank the authors of this article for their efforts to expand coverage of SCOTUS cases on Wikipedia. The article is generally in good shape, but I have a few suggestions for future improvement:

The final sentence of the background section says: "Since the petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court was appealing the Georgia Supreme Court's order, it was unclear whether the order "rests on an adequate and independent state law ground so as to preclude [the U.S. Supreme Court's] jurisdiction over Foster's federal claim." I would recommend (1) adding a sentence before this that explains that SCOTUS granted cert in 2015 and (2) re-phrase this sentence to explain that SCOTUS would not have had jurisdiction to review the case if the Georgia Supreme Court ruling was based upon "adequate and independent state law grounds" (see adequate and independent state ground).
You should add a citation after footnote A; a citation to JEB v. Alabama should suffice.
In the oral arguments section, you should probably add a sentence or two about Beth Burton's oral argument.
You should be consistent when italicizing latin words (compare "res judicata" with "prima facie").
It looks like you are trying to use Bluebook-style citations, but the formatting for citations to the slip opinion is not correct. The Cornell guide has instructions, but in general, here are the correct formats for citations to the slip opinion:

Full citation: Foster v. Chapman, No. 14-8349, 578 U.S. ___, slip op. at [insert page number or page range] (2016)
Short citation to majority opinion: Foster, slip op. at [insert page number or page range]
Short citation to Justice Alito's opinion: Foster, slip op. at [insert page number or page range] (Alito, J., concurring in judgment)
Short citation to Justice Thomas' opinion: Foster, slip op. at [insert page number or page range] (Thomas, J., dissenting)

Please let me know if any of the above comments are unclear. Thanks again for your strong work! Best, -- Notecardforfree (talk) 19:11, 29 May 2016 (UTC)[reply]