United States v. Shirey’s Empirical Analysis
1959
Citation profile
70 federal appellate · 4 district · 32 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 168 later decisions (26 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably Will v. Michigan Department of State Police (1989), Quern v. Jordan (1979)
70 federal appellate · 4 district · 32 state decisions
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 18 U.S.C. § 214
Relies on United States v. Classic · Bell v. United States · United States v. Wiltberger · Williams v. United States · United States v. Tom Mosley
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 168 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the general purpose is a more important aid to the meaning than any rule which grammar or formal logic may lay down.”
11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Th[e] Court reviews judgments, not arguments ... seeking to sustain them.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“[T]he word 'person' in the statute would include [the States] as a body politic and corporate”
1 later decision 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.