Reid v. Covert’s Empirical Analysis
1957
Citation profile
633 federal appellate · 214 district · 72 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,597 later decisions (137 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), North Carolina v. Pearce (1969)
633 federal appellate · 214 district · 72 state decisions — followed in 17 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 District of Columbia District Court)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 3238 · 18 U.S.C. § 3401 · 22 U.S.C. § 141 · 28 U.S.C. § 1252 · 50 U.S.C. § 611
Relies on Powell v. State of Alabama Patterson · Boyd v. United States · Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority · William Marbury v. James Madison · M'Culloch v. State of Maryland
Cited together with United States Ex Rel. Toth v. Quarles · Johnson v. Eisentrager · McElroy v. United States Ex Rel. Guagliardo · Kinsella v. United States Ex Rel. Singleton · Balzac v. People of Porto Rico
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 1,597 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The concept that the Bill of Rights and other constitutional protections against arbitrary government are inoperative when they become inconvenient, or when expediency dictates otherwise, is a very dangerous doctrine and, if allowed to flourish, would destroy the benefit of a written Constitution and undermine the basis of our government.”
25 later decisions quote this exact passage“that an Act of Congress ... is on a full parity with a treaty, and that when a statute which is subsequent in time is inconsistent with a treaty, the statute, to the extent of conflict, renders the treaty null.”
21 later decisions quote this exact passage“At the beginning we reject the idea that when the United States acts against citizens abroad it can do so free of the Bill of Rights. The United States is entirely a creature of the Constitution. Its power and authority have no other source. It can only act in accordance with all the limitations imposed by the Constitution. When the Government reaches out to punish a citizen who is abroad, the shield which the Bill of Rights and other parts of the Constitution provide to protect his life and liberty should not be stripped away just because he happens to be in another land. This is not a novel concept. To the contrary, it is as old as government.”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.