Re: Can a Supreme Court order or action become case law?

On 17 Jul 2008,  kristinvandoran@yahoo.com further asked: 

> {{ see earlier postings in this thread and the OP's
> apparently related, "Would this be double jeopordy?"
> posting for background if interested }}
>
> [D]oes an action [by a court - here, a state's highest
> appellate court -] become case law like an opinion?

"executive summary": The short answer will be: Mostly, "yes" -- though
the "mostly" (rather than "always" or the like) needs to be
acknowledged especially in/for later effectively litigated contested
cases because (alas!) there can be (and often are) nuanced and also
competing principles of law that affect the degree or not of
precedental value that ought and will be accorded an earlier ruling. 

Putting aside the arguably increasingly confusing and sometimes
outright paradoxical circumstance of a court cautioning explicitly
that some particular ruling/decision may not be published or cited let
alone relied on later as a precedent by other parties in other cases
-- as, however, not infrequently occurs in rulings which, nonetheless,
often are published in one way or another (and a bizarre because also
deliberately cryptic example of which was indulged in by the U.S.
supreme court in its Dec. 2000 Bush v. Gore ruling) -- appellate court
rulings, including the nature of what I'm guessing you mean by the
"action" the court directs, constitute precedent in whole or in part
for later cases that can be shown to be comparable in some relevant
respect. 

Note, however, that your question above and earlier similar
formulation may be partly self-confusing to the extent you evidently
presume one must distinguish for presumed precedental value between an
appellate court's "opinion" (i.e., what it says are the relevant facts
and other reasons/rationaliztions for whatever it is that it directs)
and the "action" the appellate court order after stating (if it
states) its opinion although, in evaluating precedental impact, both
the "opinion" portion (if there is such) and the decretal portion
(what the court directly or in effect orders) need to be
read/considered together.

The La. supreme court ruling you cited earlier did not say that it may
not be cited as precedent in later comparable cases.  However (and as
noted earlier), it is a short per curiam decision and order that,
though arguably "precedent" (or, if you prefer, "case law") for the
two related propositions (one, it makes explicit and, the other, by
necessary implication) it implements, those propositions are
themselves in essence noncontroversially trivial because they are
independently clear and well-established -- i.e., (in the explicitly
stated portion) that the La. C.Cr.P provision the court cited and
quoted from in pertinent part means what it (plainly) says and (in the
implicit part) because, procedurally, the court was merely granting
the (limited) habeas corpus relief it found warranted by the
procedural posture of that case (an issue I do not discuss further
here since you have not yet posted any facts that indicate it or
possibly related ones are relevant for you).

But if (as you also appeared to indicate in/by your recent "Would this
be double jeopardy?" query) your primary focus concerns the
substantive portion of the Holt case, that ruling is what you refer to
as "case law" (and so also "precedent") for the principle that the La.
C.Cr.P art. 898, that a criminal "defendant shall have satisfied the
sentence imposed" upon (among other things) having completed the
period of suspension of sentence or probation if the defendant was
granted that relief means what it says and also at least arguably is
precedent for the related proposition that a convicted/sentenced
felony defendant whose probationary term for that felony had expired
years before the court later (purported to) revok(ed) such probation
is not subject to such after the fact revocation (although that latter
principle, too, appears to be essentially noncontroversial because it
is also covered in effect [re. the "when?" question] by the first
sentence of  La. C.Cr.P art. 897 which La. C.Cr.P art. 898
incorporates by reference).

Recall too, however, that you have not yet made clear in your
newsgroup postings whether you refer to an erstwhile probationer whose
underlying conviction was for a felony or a misdemeanor and yet, if it
is the latter the latter, you might want not to overlook the "at any
time" language in the second sentence of La. C.Cr.P. art. 897 or the
in that connection arguably inconsistent ("during" etc.) language in
La.C.Cr.P.art. 899(a).  

In other words, you have not factually or otherwise identified clearly
in any of your recent newsgroup postings for what principle you would
claim the Holt ruling is supporting (let alone controlling) "case law"
(or "precedent") even if, in general, at least if the court does not
direct otherwise, an appellate court's ruling (both its "opinion" and
the "action" the court directs) can constitute precedental case law.