Mercer v. Winston’s Empirical Analysis
1973
Citation profile
11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 14 later decisions — most recently May 2021
11 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
Relies on Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire · Gooding v. Wilson · State v. Chaplinsky · Byrd v. Commonwealth · Byrd v. Commonwealth
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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If any person shall in the presence or hearing of another curse or abuse such other person, or use any violent abusive language to such person concerning himself or any of his relatives, or otherwise use such language under circumstances briefly calculated to provide a breach of the peace, he shall be guilty of a class 3 misdemeanor.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a disturbance which had racial overtones and approached near riot proportions” at which he had addressed several remarks to a Richmond policeman along the lines of”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“is aimed at preventing personal, face-to-face, abusive and insulting language likely to provoke a violent reaction and retaliation.”
2 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.