Parker v. Morgan’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
6 federal appellate · 3 district · 11 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 29 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2007 · most notably Smith v. Goguen (1974), Thoms v. Heffernan (1973)
6 federal appellate · 3 district · 11 state decisions — followed in 10 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 Baker v. Carr · Flast v. Cohen · United States v. O'Brien · Dombrowski v. Pfister · Thornhill v. Alabama
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 29 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“. .. prohibits in clear language a myriad of uses of the flag, including not only the displaying of the emblems which plaintiffs have been distributing [the peace symbol superimposed on the American flag just as in the case at bar], but also the displaying of flags or flag-type buttons with patriotic slogans or pictures on them. It prohibits on its face all kinds of posters, buttons, symbols, slogans, and emblems such as have been used for many years in election campaigns, patriotic movements, sale of war bonds, stamps, and the use for recruiting posters. I believe we are all familiar with the television film of the American flag waving and our planes and ships superimposed thereon with the playing of the National Anthem. To hold otherwise would make the aforesaid patriotic acts a crime.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“"Sometimes the flag represents government. Sometimes it may represent opposition to government. Always it represents Americain all its marvelous diversity." Parker v. Morgan, supra, 322 F.Supp. at 588 .”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“make it criminal to willfully and knowingly cast contempt upon the flag by public acts of physical contact such as mutilation, defiling, defacing or trampling.”
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.