Roth v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
1957
Citation profile
1,253 federal appellate · 367 district · 2,540 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5,918 later decisions (461 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2025 · most notably Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), New York Times Co. v. Sullivan (1964)
1,253 federal appellate · 367 district · 2,540 state decisions — followed in 50 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. A case is still cited after being overruled — to note the reversal, distinguish it, or in dissent. 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
reviewedUnited States v. Roth (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire · Thornhill v. Alabama · Prince v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts · Palko v. State of Connecticut
Cited together with Miller v. California · Book Named 'John Cleland's Memoirs of Woman of Pleasure' v. Attorney General of Commonwealth of Massachusetts · Jacobellis v. Ohio · New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton
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 5,918 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“whether to the average person, applying contemporary community standards, the dominant theme of the material taken as a whole appeals to prurient interest.”
106 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“was fashioned to assure unfettered interchange of ideas for the bringing about of political and social changes desired by the people.”
105 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“sufficiently definite warning as to the proscribed conduct when measured by common understanding and practices.”
58 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.