Quirin Haupt Kerling Burger Heinck Thiel Neubauer United States Quirin v. Cox Usa 6’s Empirical Analysis
317 U.S. 1 · 1942
Citation profile
351 federal appellate · 80 district · 29 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 812 later decisions (91 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably Fay v. Noia (1963), United States v. O'Brien (1968)
351 federal appellate · 80 district · 29 state decisions — followed in 11 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedthe decision below (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Tumey v. State of Ohio · Betts v. Brady · McNally v. Hill · United States v. Curtiss-Wright Export Corp. · Walker v. Johnston
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 812 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Lawful combatants are subject to capture and detention as prisoners of war by opposing military forces. Unlawful combatants are likewise subject to capture and detention, but in addition they are subject to trial and punishment by military tribunals for acts which render their belligerency unlawful.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“We may assume that there are acts regarded in other countries, or by some writers on international law, as offenses against the law of war which would not be triable by military tribunal here, either because they are not recognized by our courts as violations of the law of war or because they are of that class of offénses constitutionally triable only by a jury.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he detention and trial of petitioners— ordered by the President in the declared exercise of his powers as Commander in Chief of the Army in time of war and of grave public danger — are not to be set aside by the courts without the clear conviction that they are in conflict with the Constitution or laws of Congress constitutionally enacted.”
4 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.