Norris v. State of Alabama’s Empirical Analysis
294 U.S. 587 · 1935
Citation profile
373 federal appellate · 31 district · 588 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,460 later decisions (176 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2021 · most notably Miller-El v. Cockrell Director Texas Department of Criminal Justice Institutional Division (2003), Batson v. Kentucky (1986)
373 federal appellate · 31 district · 588 state decisions — followed in 39 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 Powell v. State of Alabama Patterson · Strauder v. West Virginia · Virginia v. Rives · Neal v. Delaware
Cited together with Smith v. Texas · Hernandez v. Texas · Swain v. State of Alabama · Hill v. State of Texas · Cassell v. Texas
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 1,460 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“would be but a vain and illusory requirement.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“* * * Summing up precisely the effect of earlier decisions, this Court thus stated the principle in Carter v. State of Texas, 177 U.S. 442 , 447, 20 S.Ct. 687, 44 L.Ed. 839, in relation to exclusion from service on grand juries: `Whenever by any action of a state, whether through its Legislature, through its courts, or through its executive or administrative officers, all persons of the African race are excluded, solely because of their race or color, from serving as grand jurors in the criminal prosecution of a person of the African race, the equal protection of the laws is denied to him, contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. Strauder v. State of West Virginia, 100 U.S. 303 , 25 L.Ed. 664; Neal v. Delaware, 103 U.S. 370 , 397, 26 L. Ed. 567; Gibson v. State of Mississippi, 162 U.S. 565 , 16 S.Ct. 904, 40 L.Ed. 1075.' This statement was repeated in the same terms in Rogers v. State of Alabama, 192 U.S. 226 , 231, 24 S.Ct. 257, 48 L.Ed. 417, and again in Martin v. State of Texas, 200 U.S. 316 , 319, 26 S.Ct. 338, 50 L.Ed. 497. The principle is equally applicable to a similar exclusion of negroes from service on petit juries. Strauder v. State of West Virginia, supra; Martin v. State of Texas, supra.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““That the question is one of fact does not relieve us of the duty to determine whether in truth a federal right has been denied. When a federal right has been specially set up and claimed in a state court, it is our province to inquire not merely whether it was denied in express terms but also whether it was denied in substance and effect. If this requires an examination of evidence, that examination must be made. Otherwise, review by this Court would fail of its purpose in safeguarding constitutional rights. Thus, whenever a conclusion of law of a state court as to a federal right and findings of fact are so intermingled that the latter control the former, it is incumbent upon us to analyze the facts in order that the appropriate enforcement of the federal right may be assured.””
7 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.