Is Wikipedia primary authority? Is it reliable? Should you rest an argument on what you find in Wikipedia? If you answered “yes”, you better think again. In United States v. Sypher, 2011 WL 579156 (W.D. Ky. Feb. 11, 2011), the Court had to remind the defense attorney that Wikipedia is not an acceptable source of legal authority in United States District Courts. The court noted that the defense council cobbled much of his argument of law by cutting and pasting, without citation, from the Wikepedia web site:
The court reminds counsel that such cutting and pasting, without attribution, is plagiarism. The court also brings to counsel's attention Rule 8.4 of the Kentucky Rules of Professional Conduct, which states that it is professional misconduct for an attorney to “engage in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit or misrepresentation. SCR 3.130(c). See also In re Burghoff, 374 B.R. 681 (Bankr.N.D.Iowa 2007) (holding that counsel's plagiarism violated identical provision of Iowa Rules of Professional Conduct). Finally, the court reminds counsel that Wikipedia is not an acceptable source of legal authority in the United States District Courts. (emphasis added)
About a month and a half later, on April 1, 2011, the Court rendered another order United States v. Sypher, 2001 WL 1314669 (W.D. Ky. April 1, 2011). In the order the court admonished the attorney for his use of Wikipedia and further plagiarism:
As the United States points out, defendant's counsel has apparently continued with this motion his practice of copying, without sufficient attribution, substantial portions of other works into his own. The court noted in its February 9 Memorandum Opinion that defendant's counsel had cut and pasted a portion of his brief from the web site Wikipedia. It has now come to the attention of the court that portions of the defendant's motion for release pending appeal appear to have been copied from a Federal Judicial Center handbook on the Bail Reform Act of 1984. . . . The court reminds counsel that it is inappropriate to repeat, verbatim, substantial portions of other works in a manner that makes such work appear to be the brief writer's own. The court also reminds counsel that the proper way to cite quotations of source material is by a direct citation to the source, not through use of a “see also” signal at the end of a lengthy string citation. See THE BLUEBOOK: A UNIFORM SYSTEM OF CITATION R. 1.2(a) at 54 (Columbia L.Rev. Ass'n et al. eds., 19th ed.2010) (explaining that no signal is used “when directly quoting an authority,” whereas the “see also” citation is used when “[c]ited authority constitutes additional source material that supports the proposition.”).
This is akin to a verbal "spanking" by the Court. Moral of the story is do not plagiarize, cite your work, and if you get caught do not do it again. As for Wikipeidia - you better have more if you want to persuade the Court.
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ReplyDeleteLooks like some people really like Wikipedia:
ReplyDelete"The report specifically cites “states’ rights” being listed as a cause of the U.S. Civil War, even though Texans “did not talk about states’ rights,” at the time. Report authors ask “why would modern members of the State Board of Education cite a reason that historical Texans did not” in their “Declaration of Causes” for secession?” It also notes at least one section of the curriculum is plagiarized from Wikipedia."
http://www.americanindependent.com/203691/texas-history-standards-get-poor-review-from-state-higher-ed-board