Trop v. Dulles’s Empirical Analysis
1958
Citation profile
917 federal appellate · 378 district · 1,038 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,506 later decisions (247 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2026 · most notably Estelle v. Gamble (1976), Farmer v. Brennan (1994)
917 federal appellate · 378 district · 1,038 state decisions — followed in 45 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
reviewedTrop v. Dulles (from Second Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on M'Culloch v. State of Maryland · Home Building & Loan Ass'n v. Blaisdell · Weems v. United States · Klapprott v. United States
Cited together with Weems v. United States · Gregg v. Georgia · Estelle v. Gamble · Robinson v. State of California · Furman v. Georgia
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 3,506 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society.”
199 later decisions quote this exact passage“In deciding whether or not a law is penal, this Court has generally based its determination upon the purpose of the statute. If the statute imposes a disability for the purposes of punishment — that is, to reprimand the wrongdoer, to deter others, etc., it has been considered penal. But a statute has been considered nonpenal if it imposes a disability, not to punish, but to accomplish some other legitimate governmental purpose. The Court has recognized that any statute decreeing some adversity as a consequence of certain conduct may have both a penal and a nonpenal effect. The controlling nature of such statutes normally depends on the evident purpose of the legislature.”
25 later decisions quote this exact passage“Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
22 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.