United States v. O'Brien’s Empirical Analysis
1968
Citation profile
2,287 federal appellate · 802 district · 1,495 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 7,190 later decisions (325 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2026 · most notably Buckley v. Valeo (1976), Elrod v. Burns (1976)
2,287 federal appellate · 802 district · 1,495 state decisions — followed in 47 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
reviewedO'Brien v. United States (from First Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 5010
Relies on Erie Co v. Tompkins · Weeks v. United States · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. Y Button · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. State of Alabama Patterson
Cited together with Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District · Young v. American Mini Theatres, Inc. · Clark v. Community for Creative Non-Violence · Buckley v. Valeo · City of Renton v. Playtime Theatres, 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 7,190 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“it furthers an important or substantial governmental interest; if the governmental interest is unrelated to the suppression of free expression; and if the incidental restriction on alleged First Amendment freedoms is no greater than is essential to the furtherance of that interest.”
484 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Inquiries into congressional motives or purposes are a hazardous matter. When the issue is simply the interpretation of legislation, the Court will look to statements by legislators for guidance as to the purpose of the legislature, because the benefit to sound decision-making in this circumstance is thought sufficient to risk the possibility of misreading Congress’ purpose. It is entirely a different matter when we are asked to void a statute that is, under well-settled criteria, constitutional on its face, on the basis of what fewer than a handful of Congressmen said about it. What motivates one legislator to make a speech about a statute is not necessarily what motivates scores of others to enact it, and the stakes are sufficiently high for us to eschew guesswork.”
53 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“It is a familiar principle of constitutional law that this Court will not strike down an otherwise constitutional statute on the basis of an alleged illicit legislative motive.”
27 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.