O'Brien v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
376 F.2d 538 · 1967
Citation profile
15 federal appellate · 6 district · 4 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 30 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 1991 · most notably United States v. O'Brien (1968), United States v. Spock (1969)
15 federal appellate · 6 district · 4 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.
Appellate journey
Relationships
Relies on Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette · Stromberg v. People of State of California · Terminiello v. Chicago · Kovacs v. Cooper
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 30 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““Any person * * * who forges, alters, knowingly destroys, knowingly mutilates, or in any manner changes any such certificate or any notation duly and validly inscribed thereon * * * shall, upon conviction, be fined not to exceed $10,000 or be imprisoned for not more than five years, or both.” [The italicized portions were added in August 1965, and it is this amendment which is now under attack.]”
1 later decision quote this exact passage“For the [district] court to . . . measure the sentence by the nature of [O'Brien's] communication, would be to punish defendant, pro tanto, for exactly what the First Amendment protects.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage““We do not rely in this connection on the fact that the legislative history suggests an improper purpose, see infra, but merely note the absence of any proper one.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. Apel v. Murphy
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.