Sheppard v. Maxwell’s Empirical Analysis
1966
Citation profile
1,398 federal appellate · 226 district · 2,590 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5,254 later decisions (131 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Chapman v. State of California (1967), United States v. Cronic (1984)
1,398 federal appellate · 226 district · 2,590 state decisions — followed in 50 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedSheppard v. Maxwell (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Irvin v. Dowd · Adams v. United States Ex Rel. McCann · In the Matters of Lee Roy Murchison and John Whites · In re Oliver
Cited together with Irvin v. Dowd · Estes v. Texas · Rideau v. Louisiana · Murphy v. Florida · Marshall v. United States
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 5,254 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“appellate tribunals have the duty to make an independent evaluation of the circumstances.”
130 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“justice cannot survive behind walls of silence,”
33 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he courtroom and courthouse premises are subject to the control of the court.”
24 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.