Statute's Current Status

Determining the current status of a statute on Westlaw can be done by using KeyCite, West's citation research service. To begin your research, you select the KeyCite tab and type in your USCA citation. A yellow or red KeyCite status flag indicates that there is either pending legislation (yellow flag) or the statute has been affected (red flag) by case law or legislative action (i.e. amended, repealed or ruled unconstitutional).

You can also obtain the KeyCite "History" for the statute and the "Citing References" which provides a list of primary and secondary materials that cite the statute, including cases. Finally, if you want to monitor future changes to the statute, you can click "Monitor With KeyCite Alert" which takes you through steps to set up an automatic monitoring service of the statute.

Note: If you do not have the code citation, but have the popular name, you can go to the USCA Popular Name Table (USCA-POP). When you click on the popular name, it will show you where the sections of the Public Law have been codified in the United States Code. Using the code citation, you can then use the KeyCite service.

Another way to get to the code citation, if you have the Public Law number or the Statutes at Large citation, is to use the United States Annotated Code Tables (USCA-TABLES). After you type in the Public Law number or the Statutes at Large citation and click the search tab, a results page will be returned. Click the appropriate document and a table with the Public Law number, the Statutes at Large citation and the USCA citation will be listed. Once you obtain the code citation, you can use the KeyCite service.