Harden v. State’s Empirical Analysis
1948
Citation profile
26 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 30 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 1997 · most notably School District of Abington Township Pennsylvania v. Schempp J Murray III (1963), 32 Ill. 2d 361 - In Re Estate of Brooks (1965)
26 state decisions
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 Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette · Reynolds v. States · Davis v. Beason · Jones v. City of Opelika Bowden
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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ . . . Laws are made for the government of actions, and while they cannot interfere with mere religious belief and opinions, they may with practices. Suppose one believed that human sacrifices were a necessary part of religious worship, would it be seriously contended that the civil government under which he lived could not interfere to prevent a sacrifice? Or if a wife religiously believed it was her duty to burn herself upon the funeral pile of her dead husband, would it be beyond the power of the civil government to prevent • her carrying her belief into practice ? “So here, as a law of the organization of society under the exclusive dominion of the United States, it is provided that plural marriages shall not be allowed. Can a man excuse his practices to the contrary because of his religious belief? To permit this would be to make the professed doctrines of religious belief superior to the law of the land, and in effect to permit every citizen to become a law unto himself. Government could exist only in name under such circumstances.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Gaskin v. State“It is equally certain that this danger is grave and immediate when and wherever the practice is being indulged. 216 S.W.2d at 711 . They may believe without fear of any punishment that it is right to handle poisonous snakes while conducting religious services. But the right to practice that belief “is limited by other recognized powers, equally precious to mankind.” (Citation omitted). One of those equally as precious rights is that of society’s protection from a practice, religious or otherwise, which is dangerous to life and health. Id.”
1 later decision 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.