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Annotated statutes are legal codes with footnotes, commentaries, and summaries that clarify legislative interpretation. They can include court case summaries and legislative history, making them valuable research tools for judges and lawyers. Annotated statutes can help clarify difficult statute interpretations and establish legal precedents. They can also shed light on legislative intent, which can be influential in legal proceedings.
Annotated statutes are federal and state legal codes or collections of laws that typically include footnotes, commentaries, or summaries that help clarify legislative interpretation. Depending on the state, country, and legal code, an annotated statute may include a summary of court cases that have interpreted the statute and its legislative history. Legislative history may consist of previous versions or drafts of statutes as well as proceedings of the legislative session that passed the new law. As such, annotated statutes can be invaluable legal research tools for judges and lawyers.
Statute interpretation can be difficult for both lawyers and judges. Sometimes the language of a statute is not clear or the legal terms included in the statute are not explicitly defined. The statutes can also appear contradictory. Consulting the annotated statutes can shed light on the meaning of the law as understood both by the legislators who wrote it, and as previously interpreted by the courts.
Judges often interpret statutes and help jurors understand what the law means. Judicial decisions can establish a legal rule or principle that other judges and courts can use to decide subsequent similar cases. Such precedents may be binding or mandatory or merely persuasive.
Both binding and persuasive legal precedents are usually included in the annotated statutes. Their inclusion makes legal research more efficient because interested parties do not need to sift through volumes of case law to learn how a statute has previously been interpreted or applied by a judicial body. The investigator can quickly determine what legal precedent has been established, if any.
Commented statutes also often include the legislative history of the law. Laws commonly undergo a series of drafts before being approved by the legislature as a whole. Previous draft statutes can shed light on the legislative intent and thus clarify the meaning.
The legislative history of a law often consists of records of legislative sessions and committee meetings as well as drafts. It is possible to ascertain how lawmakers have changed the wording and grammatical structure of a law. Legislators who frown upon aspects of a statute often note their reasoning as well.
Legislative history and legal precedent can be influential tools in a legal proceeding. Judges are often reluctant to overturn established legal precedents. The precedent set by the higher courts is binding in the lower courts.
Additionally, courts generally defer to legislative intent whenever possible. Judges interpret but do not write statutes. An attorney who has a mastery of both legal precedent and legislative intent gleaned from annotated statutes can most effectively persuade a judge to read a statute in the light most favorable to the client.
