Beck v. Washington’s Empirical Analysis
1962
Citation profile
442 federal appellate · 71 district · 478 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,279 later decisions (44 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2025 · most notably Gerstein v. Pugh (1975), Engle v. Isaac (1982)
442 federal appellate · 71 district · 478 state decisions — followed in 43 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 Powell v. State of Alabama Patterson · Irvin v. Dowd · Costello v. United States · Hoffman v. United States · Skinner v. State of Oklahoma Williamson
Cited together with Irvin v. Dowd · Sheppard v. Maxwell · Rideau v. Louisiana · Estes v. Texas · Murphy v. Florida
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 1,279 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a court could not believe the answers of the jurors and would be compelled to find bias or preformed opinion as a matter of law.”
46 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“assure uniformity of judicial decisions ... (or) immunity from judicial error....”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It may be that the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires the State, having once resorted to a grand jury procedure, to furnish an unbiased grand jury. Compare Lawn v. United States, 355 U.S. 339, 349-350 , 78 S.Ct. 311, 317-318 , 2 L.Ed.2d 321 (1958); Costello v. United States, 350 U.S. 359, 363 , 76 S.Ct. 406, 408 , 100 L.Ed. 397 (1956); Hoffman v. United States, 341 U.S. 479, 485 , 71 S.Ct. 814, 817 , 95 L.Ed. 1118 (1951). But we find that it is not necessary for us to determine this question. ...”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Coleman v. State · Smith v. Hall
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.