Foster v. California’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
696 federal appellate · 42 district · 1,100 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,193 later decisions (37 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Neil v. Biggers (1972), Manson v. Brathwaite (1977)
696 federal appellate · 42 district · 1,100 state decisions — followed in 49 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 Chapman v. State of California · United States v. Wade · Simmons v. United States · Stovall v. Denno · Gilbert v. California
Cited together with Stovall v. Denno · United States v. Wade · Simmons v. United States · Neil v. Biggers · Gilbert v. California
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 2,193 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“so unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identification”
54 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““The reliability of properly admitted eyewitness identification, like the credibility of the other parts of the prosecution’s case is a matter for the jury. But it is the teaching of Wade, Gilbert, and Stovall, supra that in some cases the procedures leading to an eyewitness identification may be so defective as to make the identification constitutionally inadmissible as a matter of law.””
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“Except for the robbers themselves, the only witness to the crime was Joseph David, the late-night manager of the Western Union office. After Foster had been arrested, David was called to the police station to view a lineup. There were three men in the lineup. One was petitioner. He is a tall man-close to six feet in height. The other two men were short-five feet, five or six inches. Petitioner wore a leather jacket which David said was similar to the one he had seen underneath the coveralls worn by the robber. After seeing this lineup, David could not positively identify petitioner as the robber. He 'thought' he was the man, but he was not sure. David then asked to speak to petitioner and petitioner was brought into an office and sat across from David at a table. Except for prosecuting officials there was no one else in the room. Even after this one-to-one confrontation David still was uncertain whether petitioner was one of the robbers: 'truthfully-I was not sure,' he testified at trial. A week or 10 days, later, the police arranged for David to view a second lineup. There were five men in that lineup. Petitioner was the only person in the second lineup who had appeared in the first lineup. This time David was 'convinced' petitioner was the man.”
6 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.