Research Questions

Now that we have covered both Am. Jur. 2d and C.J.S. in some detail, let's work through a pair of hypothetical research questions.

QUESTION: Your client was arrested in a city park late at night and was charged with loitering. He was doing nothing but gazing at the full moon, so you know this is a somewhat spurious charge and want to start with some basic research about loitering, particularly about what is required for a loitering statute to be valid.

Let's use C.J.S. to research this issue ...

Thinking that there may be a separate Title on loitering, you grab the volume shown here, where the word Loitering would occur alphabetically within the range of Titles between "Lim of Act" (short for "Limitations of Actions") and "Mal Pros" (short for "Malicious Prosecution").

Research Questions

In the front of each volume of C.J.S. is a table of contents with a list of the Titles contained in that volume. Looking at the table of contents for this volume, shown here, you see that there is no Title called Loitering! So, instead, you'll have to look up the word loitering in the general index and find out where in C.J.S. that subject is covered.
Here is the general C.J.S. index where the word loitering is listed. One of the cross-references you see is to "Validity of Statutes generally" which indicates that this subject is covered in § 14 of the Title "Vagrancy."

Research Questions

Here is the start of § 14 of this C.J.S. Title, the full name of which is "Vagrancy and Related Offenses." In both the capsule summary of this point in the bold text at the beginning of this section and in the detailed discussion that follows, you can read that statutes which prohibit loitering run into constitutional problems because they infringe upon an individual's freedom of movement and speech, and that such statutes which don't also require an additional element of unlawful conduct have been found unconstitutional under the "void for vagueness" doctrine.

Reading further in this section of C.J.S. will provide you with a good grounding in this subject and pulling some of the cases cited in the footnotes will provide you with a good start to your research and give you several ways to challenge the statute under which your client was charged.

OK, let's work through another hypothetical research problem.

QUESTION: Your client was criticized in a fairly obscure journal that deals with his profession. He thinks the article committed libel against him, and while you think that may be true, he didn't read the article until over a year and a half after it had been published. You need to first find out whether it is too late to bring a law suit. The actual statute of limitations - the time limit within which a suit must be filed - will vary depending on specific state laws, but you first need to research when the statute of limitation for libel begins to run: does it running from the time of publication, or from the time that an individual learns of the purported libelous publication?

Let's use Am. Jur. 2d for this question.

Browsing the row of volumes in Am. Jur. 2d you notice that there IS a Title on Libel and Slander, shown here. You recall that there is an index for the Title (or Titles) in particular volumes, so you can start directly with this volume and its index, and not have to use the general index.