Donnelly v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
228 U.S. 243 · 1913
Citation profile
258 federal appellate · 39 district · 399 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 917 later decisions (89 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2025 · most notably Chambers v. Mississippi (1973), United States v. Matlock (1974)
258 federal appellate · 39 district · 399 state decisions — followed in 45 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 Mattox v. United States · Hopt v. People of the Territory of Utah · United States v. Kagama · Shively v. Bowlby · Samuel Worcester v. The State of Georgia
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 917 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he rules of evidence in the main are based on experience, logic, and common sense....”
16 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“* * -» The danger of admitting hearsay evidence is sufficient to admonish courts of justice against lightly yielding to the introduction of fresh exceptions to an old and well-established rule; the value of which is felt and acknowledgéd by all. If the circumstance that the eyewitnesses of any fact be dead should justify the introduction of testimony to establish that fact from hearsay, no man could feel safe in any property, a claim to which might be supported by proof so easily obtained. * * * This court is not inclined to extend the exceptions further than they have already been carried. [Emphasis supplied.]”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"`One of the exceptions to the rule excluding it is that which permits the reception, under certain circumstances and for limited purposes, of declaration of third parties, made contrary to their own interest; but it is almost universally held that this must be on interest of a pecuniary character; and the fact that the declaration, alleged to have been thus extrajudicially made would probably subject the declarant to a criminal liability, is held not to be sufficient to constitute it an exception to the rule against hearsay evidence.'"”
4 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.