Harris v. Nelson’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
509 federal appellate · 158 district · 195 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,458 later decisions (75 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2025 · most notably Schneckloth v. Bustamonte (1973), Murray v. Carrier (1986)
509 federal appellate · 158 district · 195 state decisions — followed in 27 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
reviewedWilson v. Harris (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 28 U.S.C. § 1651 · 28 U.S.C. § 2072 · 28 U.S.C. § 2243 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996) · 28 U.S.C. § 2246 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996) · 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996) · 28 U.S.C. § 2255 (Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)
Relies on Johnson v. Zerbst · Aguilar v. Texas · Spinelli v. United States · Townsend v. Sain · Fay v. Noia
Cited together with Bracy v. Gramley · Strickland v. Washington · Brady v. State of Maryland · Townsend v. Sain · Fay v. Noia
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 1,458 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]he Supreme Court and all courts established by Act of Congress may issue all writs necessary or appropriate in aid of their respective jurisdictions and agreeable to the usages and principles of law.”
47 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The writ of habeas corpus is the fundamental instrument for safeguarding individual freedom against arbitrary and lawless state action.”
29 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“to the extent that the practice in such proceedings is not set forth in statutes of the United States and has heretofore conformed to the practice in civil actions.”
13 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.