John Rooney v. State of North Dakota’s Empirical Analysis
196 U.S. 319 · 1905
Citation profile
45 federal appellate · 9 district · 58 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 156 later decisions (9 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2022 · most notably Weaver v. Graham (1981), California Department of Corrections v. Morales (1995)
45 federal appellate · 9 district · 58 state decisions — followed in 18 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 Calder et Wife, v. Bull et Wife. · Hopt v. People of the Territory of Utah · Ex parte Garland · Cummings v. The State of Missouri · Kring v. State of Missouri
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 156 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a statute which mitigates the rigor of the law in force at the time a crime was committed cannot be regarded as ex post facto with reference to that crime.... [T]he law ... did not alter the situation to the material disadvantage of the criminal, and, therefore, was not ex post facto when applied to his case.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Dawson v. State · State v. Thomas“repealer of parole eligibility previously available to imprisoned offenders would clearly present the serious question under the ex post facto clause ... of whether it imposed a 'greater or more severe punishment than was prescribed by law at the time of the ... offense.'”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The giving, by the later statute, of three months’ additional time to live, after the rendition of judgment, was clearly to [the prisoner’s] advantage, for the court must assume that every rational person desires to live as long as he may. If the shortening of the time of confinement ... before execution, would have increased, as undoubtedly it would have increased, the punishment to the disadvantage of a criminal sentenced to be hung, the enlargement of such time must be deemed a change for his benefit.”
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.