Herndon v. Lowry’s Empirical Analysis
301 U.S. 242 · 1937
Citation profile
161 federal appellate · 37 district · 257 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 741 later decisions (121 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2021 · most notably New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964), Broadrick v. Oklahoma (1973)
161 federal appellate · 37 district · 257 state decisions — followed in 32 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 Near v. State of Minnesota Olson · Stromberg v. People of State of California · Mugler v. State of Kansas State of Kansas Tufts · Schenck v. United States · Whitney v. People of State of California
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 741 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The power of a state to abridge freedom of speech and of assembly is the exception rather that [sic] the rule and the penalizing even of utterances of a defined character must find its justification in a reasonable apprehension of danger to organized government. The judgment of the legislature is not unfettered. The limitation upon individual liberty must have appropriate relation to the safety of the state. Legislation which goes beyond this need violates the principle of the Constitution.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The statute, as construed and applied, amounts merely to a dragnet which may enmesh any one who agitates for a change of government if a jury can be persuaded that he ought to have foreseen his words would have some effect in the future conduct of others. No reasonably ascertainable standard of guilt is prescribed. So vague and indeterminate are the boundaries thus set to the freedom of speech and assembly that the law necessarily violates the guarantees of liberty embodied in the Fourteenth Amendment.” 301 U.S. 242, 263 , 57 S.Ct. 732, 742 .”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The petition alleged the judgment and sentence were void and appellant's detention illegal because the statute under which he was convicted denies and illegally restrains his freedom of speech and of assembly and is too vague and indefinite to provide a sufficiently ascertainable standard of guilt, and further alleged that there had been no adjudication by any court of the constitutional validity of the statute as applied to appellant's conduct.”
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.