St. Pierre v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
319 U.S. 41 · 1943
Citation profile
301 federal appellate · 27 district · 163 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 704 later decisions (55 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Sibron v. State of New York Peters (1968), Pennsylvania v. Mimms (1977)
301 federal appellate · 27 district · 163 state decisions — followed in 23 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
reviewedUnited States v. St. Pierre (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Southern Pacific Terminal Company v. Interstate Commerce Commission · United States v. Alaska Steamship Co. · United States of America v. Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien Gesellschaft No 289 Hamburg-Amerikanische Packetfahrt-Actien Gesellschaft · Federal Trade Commission v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co.
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 704 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A federal court is without power to decide moot questions....”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“because, after petitioner’s service of his sentence and its expiration, there was no longer a subject matter on which the judgment of this Court could operate. A ... court is without power to decide moot questions or to give advisory opinions which cannot affect the rights of the litigants in the same case before it. The sentence cannot be enlarged by this Court’s judgment, and reversal of the judgment below cannot operate to. undo what has been done or restore to petitioner the penalty of the term of imprisonment which he has served. Nor has petitioner shown that under either state or federal law further penalties or disabilities can be imposed upon him as a result of the judgment which has now been satisfied.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“petitioner [has not] shown that under either state or federal law further penalties or disabilities can be imposed on him as a result of the judgment which has now been satisfied,'' id., at 43, 63 S.Ct., at 911. We rejected St. Pierre's argument that the possibility that”
3 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.