Wiggins v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
261 F.2d 113 · 1958
Citation profile
44 federal appellate · 5 district ·
How this case has been cited
Cited by 58 later decisions — most recently April 1972 · most notably Clay v. United States (1968), Greer v. United States (1967)
44 federal appellate · 5 district ·
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 Estep v. United States · Dickinson v. United States · Witmer v. United States · United States v. Ransom · Olvera v. United States
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 58 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Congregation Servants, Pioneer Ministers, Bible Study Conductors, and other members of Jehovah’s Witnesses who correspond to ministers in a conventional organized religion usually do not receive a salary. They must engage in some secular work in order to earn sufficient funds to carry on their religious work. To a draft board, therefore, a Witness steadily employed and earning fifty dollars a week may seem no different from any other draftee gainfully employed— although the Witness may sincerely regard the ministry as his vocation and other Witnesses may accept him as a minister. This situation is not adequately covered in the Act and Regulations.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““First, the registrant must have the ministry as a vocation rather than as an avocation. * * * conscientious objection must be decided wholly on the subjective state of the registrant’s mind. The problem is different in deciding the ministerial exemption, where ‘the issue is the nature of his activities’ and an objective determination can be made.” (Emphasis added throughout)”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““(g) (1) The term ‘duly ordained minister of religion’ means a person who has been ordained,' in accordance with the ceremonial, ritual, or discipline of a church, religious sect, or organization established on the basis of a community of faith and belief, doctrines and practices of a religious character, to preach and to teach the doctrines of such church, sect, or organization and to administer the rites and ceremonies thereof in public worship, and who as his regular and customary vocation preaches and teaches the principles of religion and administers the ordinances of public worship as embodied in the creed or principles of such church, sect, or organization. “(2) The term ‘regular minister of religion’ means one who as his customary vocation preaches and teaches the principles of religion of a church, a religious sect, or organization of which he is a member, without having been formally ordained as a minister of religion, and who is recognized by such church, sect, or organization as a regular minister. “ (3) The term ‘regular or duly ordained minister of religion’ does not include a person who irregularly or incidentally preaches and teaches the principles of religion of a church, religious sect, or organization and does not include any person who may have been duly ordained a minister in accordance with the ceremonial, rite, or discipline of a church, religious sect or organization, but who does not regularly, as a vo cation, teach and preach the principles of religi”
1 later decision 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.