Ellipses in legal quotations: three dots or four, and how to space them

Short answer. An ellipsis in legal writing is three periods with a space between each one and a space on either side, as in citizen . . . to. A fourth dot appears only when a sentence’s own period is involved: the period of a complete sentence that comes before the cut, or the closing period of a quoted sentence you stop short. By convention, dots do not open a quotation.

The rules
[Convention] Words left out inside a sentence: three spaced periods where the words were.
[Convention] Whole sentences left out after a complete sentence: that sentence keeps its period, and the three spaced periods follow it.
[Convention] A full sentence you quote but cut off before its end: the ellipsis, then the period.
[Convention] A quotation that begins partway into a sentence: no dots in front. Bracket the first letter if you change its case.
[Convention] A phrase worked into your own sentence: no dots at its end either.
[Convention] Dropped citations and footnote numbers are not shown with dots. Note them after the citation instead, as in (citation omitted).
[House style] Join the three periods with no-break spaces so a line break never strands a dot, and skip the one-character “…” symbol.

Two Supreme Court examples
Inside a sentence, nothing at the end. On page 25 of Allen v. Milligan, 599 U.S. 1 (2023), the Court’s quotation of § 2 of the Voting Rights Act reads “denial or abridgement of the right of any citizen . . . to vote on account of race or color.” 52 U.S.C. § 10301(a). The dots stand for “of the United States.” The statute’s sentence goes on after “color,” but the quoted words are part of the Court’s own sentence, so its period closes them with no dots.

Dots and brackets together. Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369, 386 (2024), described executive officers who were “[n]ot unfrequently . . . the draftsmen of the laws they [were] afterwards called upon to interpret.” It was quoting page 763 of United States v. Moore, 95 U.S. 760 (1878), which reads “Not unfrequently they are the draftsmen of the laws they are afterwards called upon to interpret.” The dots stand for “they are,” [n] lowercases the first letter to fit the Court’s sentence, and [were] replaces “are.” Quote Loper Bright and those changes come with the words; quote Moore and you start again from its own text.

Two more, built by hand from the same page of Moore.
Between sentences:
“The difficulty has arisen from the collators not having been careful to harmonize the language of the sections. . . . But the intention of Congress is clear, and that intention constitutes the law.” Moore, 95 U.S. at 763.
The first sentence keeps its period, and the three dots after it replace one whole sentence: “Hence the seeming conflict.”

Cut off at the end:
“The construction given to a statute by those charged with the duty of executing it is always entitled to the most respectful consideration . . . .” Moore, 95 U.S. at 763.
The sentence goes on, “and ought not to be overruled without cogent reasons,” so the dots come first and the sentence’s period follows them.

Common mistakes
“word...word” with no spaces, or the “…” character.
Dots at the start of a quotation.
Three dots where a complete sentence ended before the cut; that sentence’s period belongs there too.
Dots standing in for a dropped citation.

Read more
The Quotations chapter (its opening is free to read): https://citationcode.com/book/quotations (opens in a new tab)
Paste a case citation and a quotation with your ellipses still in it; for the reports it covers, the pinpoint finder shows what each ellipsis leaves out: https://citationcode.com/tools/pinpoint (opens in a new tab)
The sources: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/22pdf/599us1r33_dc8f.pdf (opens in a new tab)
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/603us1r54_o7jp.pdf (opens in a new tab)
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USREPORTS-95/pdf/USREPORTS-95-760.pdf (opens in a new tab)