Bell v. Cook’s Empirical Analysis
192 F. 597 · 1911
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 1 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 1944
3 federal appellate · 1 district ·
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 Jerome Pillow v. Truman Roberts · Wright v. Mattison · Hall v. Law
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 6 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The rolls were made and approved by the Secretary, a statement of the age, sex, and quantum of Indian blood of each member being included in the descriptive matter thereon. The Act of April 26/ 1906 [ 34 Stat. 145 ], supra, besides making the presence or absence of restrictions on the alienation of allotments dependent on the quantum of Indian blood possessed by the allot-tee or heir, declared that ‘the quantum of Indian blood possessed by any member of said tribes shall be determined by the rolls of citizens of said tribes approved by the Secretary of the Interior.’ The Act of June 21, 1906, c. 3504, 34 Stat. 325 , 340, directed that a printed and bound copy of the approved rolls be deposited ‘in the office of the recorder in each of the recording districts for public inspection.’ Printed copies were so deposited. * * * “We think the court rightly excluded the oral testimony and gave controlling effect to the approved roll. When Congress came to make a difference between full-blood and mixed-blood Indians, by subjecting the former to restrictions not applied to the latter, it evidently deemed it better for the Indians and all concerned that there be some fixed, easily accessible' and reasonably reliable evidential standard by which to determine, for the purpose of the matter then in hand, who were of the full-blood and who of the mixed-blood. Congress had power to deal with the subject, and from among the standards which might have been prescribed it selected the rolls made”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““In carrying out this scheme of protection Congress, as it had the undoubted right to do, defined the word ‘minor’ as it did therein and referred any and all persons intending to become purchasers of any portion of the tribal property from an allottee thereof, not to the uncertain hazard of a judicial inquiry based on the evidence of ignorant, incompetent and interested witnesses, but to the fixed and definite public rolls to ascertain whether such allottee did or did not possess the qualified age or requisite degree of Indian blood to confer on him the power of disposition under the law. If an intending purchaser from an allottee of tribal property holding the public rolls in one hand, and the act in the other, by a comparison of the two found such allottee possessed the power of disposition under the act and the rolls, he was at liberty to purchase and he was protected in such purchase. If, on the contrary, the law and the public rolls considered together denied the right of the allottee to convey, a purchaser from such allottee was not protected, and this regardless of the true state of facts as they might be made to appear in this case.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Cully v. Mitchell
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.