Sims v. Frink’s Empirical Analysis
1962
Citation profile
3 federal appellate · 4 district · 3 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 37 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2015 · most notably Reynolds v. Sims (1964), Lucas v. Forty-Fourth General Assembly of Colorado (1964)
3 federal appellate · 4 district · 3 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
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on Baker v. Carr · Louisville Nashville Railroad Company v. Green Garrett · MacDougall v. Green · South v. Peters · Scholle v. Hare
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 37 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Sec. 200. It shall be the duty of the legislature at its first session after taking of the decennial census of the United States in the year nineteen hundred and ten, and after each subsequent decennial census, to fix by law the number of senators, and to divide the state into as many senatorial districts as there are senators, which districts shall be as nearly equal to each other in the number of inhabitants as may be, and each shall be entitled to one senator, and no more; and such districts, when formed, shall not be changed until the next apportioning session of the legislature, after the next decennial census of the United States shall have been taken; provided, that counties created after the next preceding apportioning session of the legislature may be attached to senatorial districts. No county shall be divided between two districts, and no district shall be made up of two or more counties not contiguous to each other.” (Emphasis supplied.)”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Sims v. Baggett“The only conceivable rationalization of this provision is that it is based on political units of the State and is analogous to the requirement of the Constitution of the United States * * *. The analogy cannot survive the most superficial examination into the history of the requirement of the Federal Constitution and the diametrically opposing history of the requirement of the Alabama Constitution that representation shall be based on population. Nor can it survive a comparison of the different political natures of states and counties.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“The Court hopes that the moderate steps taken by this order may be enough to break the stranglehold. They certainly will not suffice as any permanent reapportionment. If they should prove insufficient to break the stranglehold, the Court remains under the solemn duty tó relieve the plaintiffs and other citizens like situated from further denial of the equal protection of the laws. That much must be accomplished before there can be a final disposition of this case.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Sims v. Amos
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.