Robinson v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
324 U.S. 282 · 1945
Citation profile
108 federal appellate · 23 district · 255 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 497 later decisions (27 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2025 · most notably North Carolina v. Pearce (1969), Broadrick v. Oklahoma (1973)
108 federal appellate · 23 district · 255 state decisions — followed in 34 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
reviewedRobinson v. United States (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Robinson v. United States · United States v. Parker · Park v. Group of Institutional Investors · Robinson 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 497 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[i]n most English words and phrases there lurk uncertainties.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“under certain circumstances, for kidnappers who harm their victims. And we cannot doubt that a kidnapper who violently struck the head of his victim with an iron bar, as evidence showed that this petitioner did, comes within the group Congress had in mind.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“[i]f the single and vague word `unharmed' is construed to mean absence of permanent injury or grave injury, though not permanent, [the kidnapper] would have the hope, the inducement that surrender might give escape from the maximum sentence.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.