Kent v. Dulles’s Empirical Analysis
1958
Citation profile
356 federal appellate · 133 district · 200 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,140 later decisions (121 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Roe v. Wade (1973), Griswold v. State of Connecticut (1965)
356 federal appellate · 133 district · 200 state decisions — followed in 25 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
reviewedKent v. Dulles (from District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co. v. Sawyer · Panama Refining Co. v. Ryan · Korematsu v. United States
Cited together with Aptheker v. Secretary of State · Zemel v. Rusk · Shapiro v. Thompson · Haig v. Agee · United States v. Guest
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 1,140 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he right to travel is a part of the 'liberty' of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment.”
40 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he Secretary of State may grant and issue passports ... under such rules as the President shall designate and prescribe for and on behalf of the United States.”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“it shall, except as otherwise provided by the President and subject to such limitations and exceptions as the President may authorize and prescribe, be unlawful for any citizen of the United States to depart from or enter or attempt to depart from or enter the United States unless he bears a valid passport.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissente.g. Haig v. Agee · Worthy v. Herter
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.