United States v. Williams’s Empirical Analysis
341 U.S. 70 · 1951
Citation profile
159 federal appellate · 9 district · 25 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 335 later decisions (47 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2018 · most notably Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. (1970), Monroe v. Pape (1961)
159 federal appellate · 9 district · 25 state decisions
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
reviewedWilliams v. United States (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 241 (Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996) · 18 U.S.C. § 371 · 18 U.S.C. § 3731
Relies on United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co. · Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization · Screws v. United States · Shelley v. Kraemer · United States v. Classic
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 335 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The dominant conditions of the Reconstruction Period were not conducive to the enactment of carefully considered and coherent legislation. Strong post-war feeling caused inadequate deliberation and led to loose and careless phrasing of laws relating to the new political issues. * * * Although enacted together, they were proposed by different sponsors and hastily adopted. They received little attention in debate. * * *”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage“'protects the individual against state action, not against wrongs done by individuals.'”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“Section 241 was enacted as part of what came to be known as the Enforcement Act of 1870. The Act was passed on May 31, 1870, only a few months after ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment. ... Between 1866 and 1870 there was much agitated criticism in the Congress and in the Nation because of the continued denial of rights to Negroes, sometimes accompanied by violent assaults. In response to the demands for more stringent legislation Congress enacted the Enforcement Act of 1870.... [I]t included § 241 in the Act using broad language to cover not just the rights enumerated in § 242, but all rights and privileges under the Constitution and laws of the United States. ... It is clear, therefore, that § 241, from original enactment through subsequent codifications, was intended to deal, as Mr. Justice Holmes put it, with conspiracies to interfere with “Federal rights, and with all Federal rights.””
3 later decisions 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.