National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. State of Alabama Patterson’s Empirical Analysis
1958
Citation profile
1,556 federal appellate · 527 district · 940 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5,239 later decisions (495 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2026 · most notably Katz v. United States (1967), Warth v. Seldin (1975)
1,556 federal appellate · 527 district · 940 state decisions — followed in 47 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
Relies on Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority · Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · Pierce v. Society of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary Same · Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath
Cited together with Buckley v. Valeo · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. Y Button · Bates v. City of Little Rock · Shelton v. Tucker · Gibson v. Florida Legislative Investigation Committee
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 5,239 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“for the advancement of beliefs and ideas.”
87 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“economic reprisal, loss of employment, threat of physical coercion, and other manifestations of public hostility.”
68 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(t)o require that it be claimed by the members themselves would result in nullification of the right at the very moment of its assertion.”
21 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.