Smith v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
337 U.S. 137 · 1949
Citation profile
121 federal appellate · 39 district · 105 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 381 later decisions (52 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2015 · most notably Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1973), Wainwright v. Sykes (1977)
121 federal appellate · 39 district · 105 state decisions — followed in 21 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 Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Johnson v. Zerbst · Counselman v. Hitchcock · Brown v. Walker · Shapiro v. United States · Ohio Bell Telephone Co. v. Public Utilities Commission
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 381 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“No person is excused from attending and testifying or from producing any document or record before the commissioner or any officer designated by him, or in any proceeding instituted by the commissioner, on the ground that the testimony or evidence (documentary or otherwise) required of him may tend to incriminate him or subject him to a penalty or forfeiture; but no individual may be prosecuted or subjected to any penalty or forfeiture for or on account of any transaction, matter, or thing concerning which he is compelled, after validly claiming his privilege against self-incrimination, to testify or produce evidence (documentary or otherwise), except that the individual testifying is not exempt from prosecution and punishment for perjury or contempt committed in testifying.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Waiver of constitutional rights, however, is not lightly to be inferred.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“I want to claim privilege as to anything that I say”
2 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.