Giaccio v. State of Pennsylvania’s Empirical Analysis
1966
Citation profile
238 federal appellate · 66 district · 452 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,054 later decisions (46 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably Grayned v. City of Rockford (1972), Parker v. Levy (1974)
238 federal appellate · 66 district · 452 state decisions — followed in 42 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 Lanzetta v. State New Jersey · Baggett v. Bullitt · McLEOD v. OHIO · Commonwealth v. Giaccio
Cited together with Connally v. General Construction Co. · Lanzetta v. State New Jersey · Kolender v. Lawson · Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville · Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc.
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 1,054 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A] law fails to meet the requirements of the Due Process Clause if it is so vague and standardless that it leaves the public uncertain as to the conduct it prohibits or leaves judges and jurors free to decide, without any legally fixed standards, what is prohibited and what is not in each particular case.”
54 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““It may possibly be that the trial court’s charge comes nearer to giving a guide to the jury than those that preceded it, but it still falls short of the kind of legal standard due process requires. At best it only told the jury that if it found appellant guilty of ‘some misconduct’ less than that charged against him, it was authorized by law to saddle him with the State’s costs in its unsuccessful prosecution. It would be difficult if not impossible for a person to prepare a defense against such general abstract charges as ‘misconduct,’ or ‘reprehensible conduct.’ If ysed in a statute which imposed forfeitures, punishments or judgments for costs, such loose and unlimiting terms would certainly cause the statute to fail to measure up to the requirements of the Due Process Clause. And these terms are no more effective to make a statute valid which standing alone is void for vagueness.’’ (Emphasis added.) 382 U.S. at 404 .”
6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““In ’ so holding, we intend to cast no doubt whatever on the constitutionality of the settled praéticé df many States to leave to juries -finding' defendants guilty of á crime the power, to fix punishment within legally prescribed limits.””
6 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.