Bram v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
168 U.S. 532 · 1897
Citation profile
673 federal appellate · 110 district · 1,298 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,642 later decisions (182 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2025 · most notably Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera (1966), Kotteakos v. United States (1946)
673 federal appellate · 110 district · 1,298 state decisions — followed in 49 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 Boyd v. United States · Hopt v. People of the Territory of Utah · Brown v. Walker · Wilson v. United States
Cited together with Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Malloy v. Hogan · Haynes v. Washington · Culombe v. Connecticut · Schneckloth v. Bustamonte
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 2,642 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“extracted by any sort of threats or violence, [or] obtained by any direct or implied promises, however slight, [or] by the exertion of any improper influence.”
126 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"`* * * The rule is not that, in order to render a statement admissible, the proof must be adequate to establish that the particular communications contained in a statement were voluntarily made, but it must be sufficient to establish that the making of the statement was voluntary; that is to say, that, from the causes which the law treats as legally sufficient to engender in the mind of the accused hope or fear in respect to the crime charged, the accused was not involuntarily impelled to make a statement when but for the improper influence he would have remained silent. * * *'"”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[a] confession, therefore, whether made upon an official examination or in discourse with private persons, which is obtained from a defendant, either by the flattery of hope, or by the impressions of fear, however slightly the emotions may be implanted, . . . is not admissible evidence; for the law will not suffer a prisoner to be made the deluded instrument of his own conviction”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.