Lewis v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
146 U.S. 370 · 1892
Citation profile
600 federal appellate · 34 district · 651 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,512 later decisions (66 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2025 · most notably Batson v. Kentucky (1986), Swain v. State of Alabama (1965)
600 federal appellate · 34 district · 651 state decisions — followed in 46 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 Hopt v. People of the Territory of Utah · Ball v. United States · United States v. Rindskopf · Schwab v. Berggren
Cited together with Illinois v. Allen · Swain v. State of Alabama · Snyder v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts · Hopt v. People of the Territory of Utah · Pointer 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 1,512 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A leading principle that pervades the entire law of criminal procedure is that, after indictment found, nothing shall be done in the absence of the prisoner.”
26 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“sudden impressions and unaccountable prejudices we are apt to conceive upon the bare looks and gestures of another,”
20 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“For it is, as Blackstone says, an arbitrary and capricious right; and it must be exercised with full freedom, or it fails of its full purpose.”
19 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Fuson v. State · Young v. State
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.