Burns v. Richardson’s Empirical Analysis
1966
Citation profile
242 federal appellate · 101 district · 136 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 906 later decisions (118 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2023 · most notably Lockett v. Ohio (1978), Thornburg v. Gingles (1986)
242 federal appellate · 101 district · 136 state decisions — followed in 22 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 28 U.S.C. § 2101 · 28 U.S.C. § 2281
Relies on Reynolds v. Sims · McGowan v. State of Maryland Gallagher · Carrington v. Rash · Lucas v. Forty-Fourth General Assembly of Colorado
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 906 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It might well be that, designedly or otherwise, a multi-member constituency apportionment scheme, under the circumstances of a particular case, would operate to minimize or cancel out the voting strength of racial or political elements of the voting population.”
18 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“carefully left open the question what population was being referred to.”
16 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a State's freedom of choice to devise substitutes for an apportionment plan found unconstitutional, either as a whole or in part, should not be restricted beyond the clear commands of the Equal Protection Clause.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
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.