Cantwell v. State of Connecticut’s Empirical Analysis
310 U.S. 296 · 1940
Citation profile
1,230 federal appellate · 526 district · 2,230 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6,192 later decisions (574 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2025 · most notably In the Matter of Samuel Winship (1970), Gideon v. Wainwright (1963)
1,230 federal appellate · 526 district · 2,230 state decisions — followed in 50 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 Thornhill v. Alabama · Schneider v. State · Near v. State of Minnesota Olson · Reynolds v. States
Cited together with Schneider v. State · Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire · Sherbert v. Verner · Terminiello v. Chicago · Lovell v. City of Griffin
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 6,192 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
193 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Resort to epithets or personal abuse is not in any proper sense communication of information or opinion safeguarded by the Constitution, and its punishment as a criminal act would raise no question under that instrument.”
94 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Nothing we have said is intended even remotely to imply that, under the cloak of religion, persons may, with impunity, commit frauds upon the public.”
39 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.