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In what circumstances is it better to use an annotated code than a legislative history when researching a statute?

A. When you need to present the statute to the judge

B. When you need to learn about relevant court cases that address that statute

C. When you need to figure out the classification of the statute and read related statute

D. When you need to understand what congress was thinking when they enacted the law.

2 Answers

3 votes
B because I know it’s B and I said so
User Kaediil
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Answer:

B

Step-by-step explanation:

Statutes are legislation that has been approved as law. When working with statues there are three forms of legislation to be concerned with. These are bills and legislative history, session law, and codes.

We have previously looked at the legislative process. At this point it is important to understand that anything that happens before a law is formally approved is legislative history, and while informative, is not law.

All bills enacted into law become session law. Most session law, but not all, is codified.

Session laws are the collection of statutes enacted by a legislature during a single session of that legislature, often published following the end of the session as a bound volume.

Codes publish laws of general impact currently in force, arranged by topic with amendments in context. Codes allow the reader to determine the statutory law on a given subject regardless of how many session laws have contributed to the topic.

Since the code is constantly being modified by new or amended session law, codes are time sensitive and subject to change. Because of this codes are updated regularly.

Although codes are usually not the positive law form, they are authoritative and are prima facie evidence of the text of the law. Codes are intended to be the primary research tool for statutes.

Annotated codes are unofficial publications by private publishers. They are regularly updated, rather than re-published on a cycle, and are thus generally kept current.

An important addition to annotated codes is that they include interpretive and secondary materials. these include references to court cases that have interpreted a code section, as well as commentary and scholarly references. This makes annotated codes the preferred tool for statutory research.

User DivinusVox
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