Snowden v. Hughes’s Empirical Analysis
321 U.S. 1 · 1944
Citation profile
1,037 federal appellate · 354 district · 656 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,183 later decisions (71 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Baker v. Carr (1962), Monroe v. Pape (1961)
1,037 federal appellate · 354 district · 656 state decisions — followed in 44 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
reviewedSnowden v. Hughes (from Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 41 · 8 U.S.C. § 41
Relies on Yick Wo v. Hopkins · Skinner v. State of Oklahoma Williamson · United States v. Classic · Cannon v. United States
Cited together with Monroe v. Pape · Yick Wo v. Hopkins · Screws v. United States · Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth · Oyler v. Boles
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 3,183 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The unlawful administration by state officers of a state statute fair on its face, resulting in its unequal application to those who are entitled to be treated alike, is not a denial of equal protection unless there is shown to be present in it an element of intentional or purposeful discrimination.”
86 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Mere violation of a state statute does not infringe the federal Constitution.”
23 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Such allegations are insufficient under our decisions to raise any issue of equal protection of the laws or to call upon a federal court to try questions of state law in order to discover a purposeful discrimination in the administration of the laws of Illinois which is not alleged.””
10 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.