Thomas Patterson v. People of the State of Colorado Ex Rel Attorney General of the State of Colorado’s Empirical Analysis
205 U.S. 454 · 1907
Citation profile
218 federal appellate · 58 district · 364 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 913 later decisions (76 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Gertz v. Robert Welch, Inc. (1974), Sheppard v. Maxwell (1966)
218 federal appellate · 58 district · 364 state decisions — followed in 42 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 United States v. Cruikshank · In re Debs · Kemmler · Terry · Hovey v. Elliott
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 913 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The theory of our system is that the conclusions to be reached in a case will be induced only by evidence and argument in open court, and not by any outside influence, whether of private talk or public print.”
42 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“`The main purpose of the First Amendment is to prevent all such previous restraints upon publications as had been practiced by other governments.'”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““ * * * jn general the decision of a court upon a question of law, however wrong and however contrary to previous decisions, is not an infraction of the Fourteenth Amendment merely because it is wrong or because earlier decisions are reversed.””
3 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.