Www Supremecourt Gov

Supreme Court Opinions Access Skill

Access Supreme Court slip opinions, orders, and PDF documents from www.supremecourt.gov.

Overview

This skill provides programmatic access to the Supreme Court's opinions database. It can:

• Retrieve slip opinions by term (year)
• Get opinions relating to orders
• Download PDF documents for opinions
• Search opinions by case name or docket number

Technical Details

Site Structure

The Supreme Court website uses a structured table format for listing opinions:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/slipopinion/{term}

Where {term} is a two-digit year (e.g., "24" for 2024).

Opinion Table Structure

Each opinion includes:

• R- (Report number): Sequential opinion number for the term
• Date: Decision date
• Docket: Docket number (e.g., "24-809")
• Name: Case name (e.g., "Goldey v. Fields")
• J.: Justice who wrote the opinion (initials)
• PDF Link: Link to the full opinion PDF

Bot Protection

Important: The Supreme Court website uses Akamai bot protection that blocks direct HTTP requests. This skill uses Playwright browser automation to:

1. Establish a valid session with cookies
2. Navigate through the opinion listings
3. Handle PDF downloads through the browser

Direct HTTP requests to the site will result in 403 Forbidden errors.

Available Terms

Opinions are available for multiple terms:

• Current term: 25 (2025)
• Recent terms: 24, 23, 22, 21, 20...
• The archive appears to go back to at least 2000

Functions

get_slip_opinions

Retrieve all slip opinions for a given term.

Parameters:

• term (string, optional): Two-digit term year. Default: "24"

Example:

result = await execute({
    "function": "get_slip_opinions",
    "term": "24"
})

Response:

{
  "success": true,
  "term": "24",
  "title": "Opinions of the Court - 2024",
  "total_opinions": 67,
  "opinions": [
    {
      "report_number": "67",
      "date": "6/30/25",
      "docket": "24-809",
      "case_name": "Goldey v. Fields",
      "justice": "PC",
      "pdf_url": "https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/606us2r67_8nka.pdf",
      "pdf_filename": "606us2r67_8nka.pdf",
      "term": "24"
    }
  ]
}

get_relating_to_orders

Retrieve opinions relating to orders for a given term.

Parameters:

• term (string, optional): Two-digit term year. Default: "24"

Example:

result = await execute({
    "function": "get_relating_to_orders",
    "term": "24"
})

download_pdf

Download a Supreme Court opinion PDF.

Parameters:

• pdf_url (string, required): Full URL or path to PDF

Example:

result = await execute({
    "function": "download_pdf",
    "pdf_url": "https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/606us2r67_8nka.pdf"
})

# Or using just the path
result = await execute({
    "function": "download_pdf",
    "pdf_url": "24pdf/606us2r67_8nka.pdf"
})

Response:

{
  "success": true,
  "pdf_url": "https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/606us2r67_8nka.pdf",
  "filename": "606us2r67_8nka.pdf",
  "content_type": "application/pdf",
  "size_bytes": 181292,
  "data": "JVBERi0xLjQKJ..."
}

The data field contains the base64-encoded PDF content.

search_opinions

Search opinions by case name or docket number.

Parameters:

• query (string, required): Search query
• term (string, optional): Limit to specific term

Example:

# Search across recent terms
result = await execute({
    "function": "search_opinions",
    "query": "Trump"
})

# Search within specific term
result = await execute({
    "function": "search_opinions",
    "query": "24-809",
    "term": "24"
})

Response:

{
  "success": true,
  "query": "Trump",
  "terms_searched": ["25", "24", "23", "22", "21"],
  "total_matches": 5,
  "matches": [
    {
      "report_number": "66",
      "date": "6/27/25",
      "docket": "24A884",
      "case_name": "Trump v. CASA, Inc.",
      "justice": "AB",
      "pdf_url": "https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/606us2r66_j426.pdf",
      "term": "24"
    }
  ]
}

Justice Abbreviations

The justice field uses initials for the authoring justice:

• EK: Elena Kagan
• AB: Amy Coney Barrett
• BK: Brett Kavanaugh
• PC:...
• etc.

Error Handling

All functions return structured error responses:

{
  "success": false,
  "error": "Description of the error",
  "error_type": "ErrorClassName"
}

Common error scenarios:

• Missing required parameters
• Invalid PDF URL
• Network/timeout errors
• Page structure changes

Performance Notes

• Browser automation adds overhead (~3-5 seconds per request)
• PDF downloads may add additional time depending on file size
• Search operations query multiple terms sequentially

Limitations

• Direct HTTP access is blocked by Akamai
• The skill cannot access opinions via simple aiohttp/httpx
• PDF URLs require a valid session from the opinions page
• Very old terms may have different page structures