Kearney’s Empirical Analysis
20 U.S. 38 · 1822
Citation profile
43 federal appellate · 9 district · 73 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 252 later decisions (50 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2022 · most notably Ex Parte: Edward T Young (1908), Wainwright v. Sykes (1977)
43 federal appellate · 9 district · 73 state decisions — followed in 26 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from District of Columbia District Court)
Relationships
Relies on Ex Parte Bollman and Ex Parte Swartwout · Ex parte Burford · United States v. Hamilton
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 252 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““If this were an application for a habeas corpus after judgment on an indictment for an offense within tile jurisdiction of the Circuit Court, it could hardly be maintained that this court could revise such a judgment or the proceedings which led to it, or set it aside and discharge the prisoner. There is in principle no distinction between that case and the present;' for. when a court commits a party for a contempt, their adjudication is a conviction, and their commitment in consecpience is execution, and so the law was settled upon full deliberation in the case of Brass Crosby, Lord Mayor of London, 3 Wilson, 188.“”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“What was said in Ex parte Kearney, 7 Wheat. 38 , 45, [ 5 L.Ed. 391 ,] may be here repeated: “Wherever power is lodged it may be abused. But this forms no solid objection against its exercise. Confidence must be reposed somewhere; and if there should be an abuse, it will be a public grievance, for which a remedy may be applied by the legislature, and is not to be devised by courts of justice.””
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““When, the House of Commons adjudged anything to he a contempt, or a breach of privilege, their adjudication is a conviction and their commitment, in consequence, is execution; and no court can discharge on bail, a person that is in execution by the judgment of any other court. The House of Commons, therefore, having an authority to commit, and that commitment being an execution, what can this court do? It can do nothing, when a person is in execution by the judgment of a court having a competent jurisdiction. In such a case, this court is not a court of appeal.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Ex parte Craig · Jenkins v. Mehra
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.