Pace v. State of Alabama’s Empirical Analysis
106 U.S. 583 · 1882
Citation profile
11 federal appellate · 3 district · 44 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 90 later decisions (14 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2024 · most notably Swain v. State of Alabama (1965), Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia (1967)
11 federal appellate · 3 district · 44 state decisions — followed in 15 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. A case is still cited after being overruled — to note the reversal, distinguish it, or in dissent. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Most-quoted passages
The sentences later courts lift from this opinion, ranked by how many decisions quote each — the parts of the opinion doing the work. These counts are smaller than the citation total above because most of the 90 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“if any white person and any negro ... intermarry or live in adultery or fornication with each other, each of them must, on conviction, be imprisoned in the penitentiary or sentenced to hard labor for the county for not less than two nor more than seven years.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage““ . . . Equality of protection under the laws implies . . . that in the administration of criminal justice he [any person] shall not be subjected, for the same offense, to any greater or different punishment. ...””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“The defect in the argument of counsel consists in his assumption that any discrimination is made by the laws of Alabama in the punishment provided for the offense for which the plaintiff in error was indicted when committed by a person of the African race and when committed by a white person. The two sections of the code cited are entirely consistent. The one prescribes, generally, a punishment for an offense committed between persons of different sexes; the other prescribes a punishment for an offense which can only be committed where the two sexes are of different races. ... Whatever discrimination is made in the punishment prescribed in the two sections is directed against the offense designated and not against the person of any particular color or race. The punishment of each offending person, whether white or black, is the same.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.