Stanley v. Georgia’s Empirical Analysis
1969
Citation profile
735 federal appellate · 231 district · 1,150 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,125 later decisions (224 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2025 · most notably Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics (1971), United States v. Leon (1984)
735 federal appellate · 231 district · 1,150 state decisions — followed in 46 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 Mapp v. Ohio · Griswold v. State of Connecticut · Warden, Maryland Penitentiary v. Hayden · Roth v. United States · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. State of Alabama Patterson
Cited together with Griswold v. State of Connecticut · Roth v. United States · Roe v. Wade · Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton · Eisenstadt v. Baird
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 3,125 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men's minds.”
118 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“What we have said in no way infringes upon the power of the State or Federal Government to make possession of other items, such as narcotics, firearms, or stolen goods, a crime. Our holding in the present case turns upon the Georgia statute's infringement of fundamental liberties protected by the First and Fourteenth Amendments. No First Amendment rights are involved in most statutes making mere possession criminal.”
10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“government officials to use a seemingly precise and legal warrant only as a ticket to get into a man's home and, once inside, to launch forth upon confined searches and indiscriminate seizures as if armed with all the unbridled and illegal power of a general warrant.”
5 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.