Opper v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
1954
Citation profile
2,300 federal appellate · 83 district · 636 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,567 later decisions (17 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Wong Sun v. United States (1963), Zafiro v. United States (1993)
2,300 federal appellate · 83 district · 636 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
reviewedOpper v. United States (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Ball v. United States · Bram v. United States · Smith v. United States · Wilson v. United States
Cited together with Smith v. United States · Glasser v. United States · Kotteakos v. United States · Wong Sun v. United States · Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera
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 3,567 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“substantial independent evidence which would tend to establish the trustworthiness of the statement.”
88 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Our theory of trial relies upon the ability of a jury to follow instructions.”
30 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In the United States our concept of justice that finds no man guilty until proven has led our state and federal courts generally to refuse conviction on testimony concerning confessions of the accused not made by him at the trial of his case.”
20 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.