Washington v. Texas’s Empirical Analysis
1967
Citation profile
1,354 federal appellate · 174 district · 3,121 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5,698 later decisions (114 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2025 · most notably Faretta v. California (1975), Wolff v. McDonnell (1974)
1,354 federal appellate · 174 district · 3,121 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.
Relationships
Relies on Gideon v. Wainwright · Pointer v. Texas · Palko v. State of Connecticut · In re Oliver
Cited together with Chambers v. Mississippi · United States v. Valenzuela-Bernal · Chapman v. State of California · Webb v. Texas · Brady v. State of Maryland
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 5,698 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The right to offer the testimony of witnesses, and to compel their attendance, if necessary, is in plain terms the right to present a defense, the right to present the defendant’s version of the facts as well as the prosecution’s to the jury so it may decide where the truth lies. Just as an accused has the right to confront the prosecution’s witnesses for the purpose of challenging their testimony, he has the right to present his own witnesses to establish a defense. This right is a fundamental element of due process of law.”
271 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor.”
51 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right ... to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor....”
33 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.