Bruton v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
1968
Citation profile
5,576 federal appellate · 481 district · 7,306 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 16,446 later decisions (208 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Crawford v. Washington (2004), Delaware v. Van Arsdall (1986)
5,576 federal appellate · 481 district · 7,306 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
reviewedthe decision below (from Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Jackson v. Denno · Griffin v. California · Pointer v. Texas
Cited together with Chapman v. State of California · Harrington v. California · Richardson v. Marsh · Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Roberts v. Russell
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 16,446 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“there are some contexts in which the risk that the jury will not, or cannot, follow instructions is so great, and the consequences of failure so vital to the defendant, that the practical and human limitations of the jury system cannot be ignored.”
413 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a kind of `judicial lie': It undermines a moral relationship between the courts, the jurors, and the public; like any other judicial deception, it damages the decent judicial administration of justice.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The rules are designed to promote economy and efficiency and to avoid a multiplicity of trials, where these objectives can be achieved without substantial prejudice to the right of defendants to a fair trial.””
5 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.