Skinner v. State of Oklahoma Williamson’s Empirical Analysis
316 U.S. 535 · 1942
Citation profile
625 federal appellate · 261 district · 1,540 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,425 later decisions (222 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Baker v. Carr (1962), Roe v. Wade (1973)
625 federal appellate · 261 district · 1,540 state decisions — followed in 48 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 Yick Wo v. Hopkins · United States v. Carolene Products Co. · Cannon v. United States · William Truax v. Mike Raich
Cited together with Griswold v. State of Connecticut · Meyer v. State of Nebraska · Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia · Roe v. Wade · Eisenstadt v. Baird
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 3,425 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.”
62 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“`lays an unequal hand on those who have committed intrinsically the same quality of offense'”
21 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““[A] State is not constrained in the exercise of its police power to ignore experience which marks a class of offenders or a family of offenses for special treatment. Nor is it prevented by the equal protection clause from confining ‘its restrictions to those classes of cases where the need is deemed to be clearest. * * * the law does all that is needed when it does all that it can, indicates a policy, applies it to all within the lines, and seeks to bring within the lines all similarly situated so far and so fast as its means allow.’ ” 316 U.S. at 540 , 62 S.Ct. at 1113 .”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Lamb v. Brown · Malloroy v. State
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.