Sweezy v. State of New Hampshire C Wyman’s Empirical Analysis
1957
Citation profile
429 federal appellate · 186 district · 243 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,526 later decisions (179 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2025 · most notably Board of Regents of State Colleges v. Roth (1972), Buckley v. Valeo (1976)
429 federal appellate · 186 district · 243 state decisions — followed in 32 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.
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1257 · 28 U.S.C. § 2103
Relies on Boyd v. United States · M'Culloch v. State of Maryland · Palko v. State of Connecticut · Tenney v. Brandhove · Hurtado v. People of the State of California
Cited together with Keyishian v. Board of Regents of Univ. of State of NY · Shelton v. Tucker · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. State of Alabama Patterson · Regents of the University of California v. Bakke · Pickering v. Board of Education of Township High School District 205 Will County Illinois
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 1,526 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Any interference with the freedom of a party is simultaneously an interference with the freedom of its adherents.”
70 later decisions quote this exact passage“to determine for itself on academic grounds who may teach, what may be taught, how it shall be taught, and who may be admitted to study.”
40 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“A local statute investing a collection of persons not of the judicial department, with powers that are judicial and authorizing them to exercise the pardoning power which alone belongs to the Governor of the State, presents no question under the Constitution of the United States. The right to the due process of law prescribed by the Fourteenth Amendment would not be infringed by a local statute of that character. Whether the legislative, executive and judicial powers of a State shall be kept altogether distinct and separate, or whether persons or collections of persons belonging to one department may, in respect to some matters, exert powers which, strictly speaking, pertain to another department of government, is for the determination of the State. And its determination one way or the other cannot be an element in the inquiry whether the due process of law prescribed by the Fourteenth Amendment has been respected by the State or its representatives when dealing with matters involving life or liberty.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Ware v. Gagnon · Hunt v. Anderson
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.