Legal Definitions - supra citatum

Supra citatum is a Latin phrase that translates to "above cited." Historically, it was used in legal and academic writing to refer to a source (such as a case, statute, or book) that had already been fully cited earlier in the same document. Its purpose was to avoid repeating lengthy citation details, directing the reader to the previous, complete reference.

Here are some examples illustrating its use:

• Legal Brief: Imagine a lawyer submitting a legal brief to a court. On page 3, they provide the full citation for a specific appellate court decision, including the case name, volume, reporter, page number, and year. Later, on page 10, they need to refer to the exact same case again. Instead of writing out the entire citation a second time, they might have historically written something like, "As established in Smith v. Jones, supra citatum, at 45," indicating that the full details for Smith v. Jones can be found earlier in the brief, and the reader should look "above" for the complete reference.

• Scholarly Article: Consider an academic writing an article for a law review about constitutional law. In the introduction, the author might provide a complete citation for a seminal book, such as "Laurence Tribe, American Constitutional Law (2d ed. 1988)." If the author refers to this book multiple times throughout the article, a subsequent reference might simply state, "Tribe, supra citatum, at 125," signaling that the full publication details for Tribe's book were already provided in a preceding footnote or bibliography entry.

• Court Opinion: A judge drafting a court opinion might initially cite a specific section of a state's criminal code, for instance, "California Penal Code § 187 (defining murder)." If the judge needs to refer to that exact same statute section later in the opinion to discuss its application, they could historically use "Cal. Penal Code § 187, supra citatum," to indicate that the full statutory reference was already provided earlier in the opinion, thus avoiding redundancy.