Royall’s Empirical Analysis
117 U.S. 241 · 1886
Citation profile
583 federal appellate · 203 district · 65 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,778 later decisions (182 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2022 · most notably Ex Parte: Edward T Young (1908), Coleman v. Thompson (1991)
583 federal appellate · 203 district · 65 state decisions — followed in 22 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. 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.
Relationships
Relies on Ex parte Lange · 'The Ku-Klux Cases' Yarbrough · Ex parte Siebold · Covell v. Heyman
Cited together with Picard v. Connor · Fay v. Noia · Rose v. Lundy · Darr v. Burford · Ex Parte Hawk No - on Rule to Show Cause and Return
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 1,778 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“unnecessary conflict between [federal and state] courts equally bound to guard and protect rights secured by the constitution,”
62 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“to dispose of the party as law and justice require,”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. In re Neagle · New York v. Eno““By the existing statutes, this court and the circuit and district courts, and any justice or judge thereof, have power to grant writs of habeas corpus for the purpose of inquiring into the cause of restraint of liberty of any prisoner in jail who ‘is in custody in violation of the Constitution or of a law or treaty of the United States’; and ‘the court or justice or judge, to whom the application is made, shall forthwith award a writ of habeas corpus, unless it appears from the petition itself that the party is not entitled thereto’; and ‘shall proceed in a summary way to determine the facts of the ease, by hearing the testimony and arguments, and thereupon to dispose of the party as law and justice may require.’ Rev. St. §§ 751-755, 761 [28 USCA §§ 451, 455, 461], “The power thus granted to the courts and judges of the United States clearly extends to prisoners held in custody, under the authority of a state, in violation of the Constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States. But in the exercise of this power the courts of the United States are not bound to discharge by writ of habeas corpus every such prisoner.””
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Mahon v. Justice · In re Neagle
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.