McLaughlin v. Florida’s Empirical Analysis
1964
Citation profile
383 federal appellate · 194 district · 669 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,931 later decisions (161 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably City of Cleburne Texas v. Cleburne Living Center (1985), Furman v. Georgia (1972)
383 federal appellate · 194 district · 669 state decisions — followed in 45 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
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1981 (Civil Rights Act of 1866)
Relies on Griffin v. People of the State of Illinois · McGowan v. State of Maryland Gallagher · Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, Inc. · Douglas v. People of State of California · Bolling v. Sharpe
Cited together with Loving v. Commonwealth of Virginia · Shapiro v. Thompson · Graham v. Richardson · Skinner v. State of Oklahoma Williamson · San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez
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 1,931 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[T]he test of equal protection validity regarding this type of legislation is 'whether the classifications drawn in [the] classifications drawn in [the] statute are reasonable in light of its purpose.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence““must always rest upon some difference which bears a reasonable and just relation to the act in respect to which the classification is proposed, and can never be made arbitrarily, and without any such basis.””
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“1. The equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment does not take from the State the power to classify in the adoption of police laws, but admits of the exercise of a wide scope of discretion in that regard, and avoids what is done only when it is without any reasonable basis and therefore is purely arbitrary. 2. A classification having some reasonable basis does not offend against that clause merely because it is not made with mathematical nicety or because in practice it results in some inequality. 3. When the classification in such a law is called into question, if any state of facts reasonably can be conceived that would sustain it, the existence of that state of facts at the time the law was enacted must be assumed. 4. One who assails the classification in such a law must carry the burden of showing that it does not rest upon any reasonable basis, but is essentially arbitrary.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.