Lawson v. Commonwealth’s Empirical Analysis
1942
Citation profile
14 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 15 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2011
14 state decisions — followed in 10 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 Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · Reynolds v. States · Davis v. Beason · Minersville School District v. Gobitis · Jones v. City of Opelika Bowden
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 15 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Laws enacted for the purpose of restraining and punishing acts which have a tendency to disturb the public peace or to corrupt the public morals are not repugnant to the constitutional guaranties of religious liberty and freedom of conscience, although such acts may have been done pursuant to, and in conformity with, what was believed at the time to be a religious duty. Without violating the constitutional guaranties, the state, under the police power, may enact laws in order to promote the general welfare, public health, public safety and order, public morals, and to prevent fraud.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.