Bain Jr’s Empirical Analysis
121 U.S. 1 · 1887
Citation profile
987 federal appellate · 107 district · 304 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,797 later decisions (101 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2024 · most notably United States v. United Mine Workers of America (1947), United States v. Cotton (2002)
987 federal appellate · 107 district · 304 state decisions — followed in 42 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.
Relationships
Relies on Hurtado v. People of the State of California · Ex parte Lange · Wilson · Ex parte Parks
Cited together with Stirone v. United States · Russell v. United States · United States v. Miller · Berger v. United States · Salinger v. United States
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 1,797 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If it lies within the province of a court to change the charging part of an indictment to suit its own notions of what it ought to have been, or what the grand jury would probably have made it if their attention had been called to suggested changes, the great importance which the common law attaches to an indictment by a grand jury, as a prerequisite to a prisoner’s trial for a crime, and without which the Constitution says “no person shall be held to answer,” may be frittered away until its value is almost destroyed.”
34 later decisions quote this exact passage“[i]f it lies within the province of a court to change the charging part of an indictment to suit its own notions of what it ought to have been, or what the grand jury would probably have made it if their attention had been called to suggested changes, the great importance which the common law attaches to an indictment by a grand jury, as a prerequisite to a prisoner’s trial for a crime, and without which the constitution says ‘no person shall be held to answer,’ maybe frittered away until its value is almost destroyed.... ... Any other doctrine would place the rights of the citizen, which were intended to be protected by the constitutional provision, at the mercy or control of the court or prosecuting attorney; for, if it be once held that changes can be made by the consent or the order of the court in the body of the indictment as presented by the grand jury, and the prisoner can be called upon to answer to the indictment as thus changed, the restriction which the constitution places upon the power of the court, in regard to the prerequisite of an indictment, in reality no longer exists.”
22 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[n]o person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury.”
19 later decisions 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.