State v. Becker’s Empirical Analysis
1954
Citation profile
35 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 44 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 1989 · most notably Roth v. United States (1957), Brockett v. Spokane Arcades, Inc. (1985)
35 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
Relies on Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire · Near v. State of Minnesota Olson · Winters v. People of State of New York · Nash v. United States · International Harvester Company of America v. Commonwealth of Kentucky
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 44 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““After applying the required tests all the members of this Court have concluded that the contents of these publications tend to incite lascivious thoughts, arouse lustful desire, encourage breaches of the law, and promote and encourage commission of crime, law violation and moral decay.””
2 later decisions quote this exact passage“judges may know what falls within the classification of the decent, the chaste and the pure in either social life or in publications, and what must be deemed obscene and lewd and immoral and scandalous and lascivious.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. D.C. And M.S. v. The City of St. Louis, Missouri Homer E. Sayad Charles W. Valier Thomas Purcell Robert F. Wintersmith Vincent C. Schoemehl, Jr. Jerome Williams John J. Frank James Mosbacher Robert J. Baer Jordan Lewis Ronald Klier Roy Joachimstaler Antoinette Filla Fred Husman Michael Vierling, Individually and in Their Official Capacities · Dc Ms v. City of St Louis Missouri““The word ‘indecent’ is a common word of common understanding. It has been defined to mean unfit to be seen or heard; immodest; gross; obscene; offending against modesty and less than immodest; that which would arouse lewd or lascivious thoughts in the susceptible. [Citations omitted.] The word ‘immoral’ is likewise a word of common understanding. It means hostile to the welfare of the general public; morally evil, impure, vicious or dissolute; licentious misconduct. [Citations omitted.] The word ‘scandalous’ as used in the statute in connection with the words ‘obscene, lewd, licentious, lascivious, immoral’ means shocking to decency or propriety, offensive, disreputable. Webster gives as synonyms of ‘scandalous,’ the words detestable, base, vile, shameful.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage
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.