Williams v. Illinois’s Empirical Analysis
1970
Citation profile
476 federal appellate · 54 district · 1,119 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,009 later decisions (61 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably Bell v. Wolfish (1979), San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973)
476 federal appellate · 54 district · 1,119 state decisions — followed in 48 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 Anders v. California · Mullane v. Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co. · United States v. Wade · Griffin v. People of the State of Illinois · United States v. O'Brien
Cited together with Tate v. Short · Bearden v. Georgia · Griffin v. People of the State of Illinois · Morris v. Schoonfield · Douglas v. People of State of 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 2,009 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment requires that the statutory ceiling placed on imprisonment for any substantive offense be the same for all defendants irrespective of their economic status.”
83 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“requires a careful inquiry into such factors as 'the nature of the individual interest affected, the extent to which it is affected, the rationality of the connection between legislative means and purpose, [and] the existence of alternative means for effectuating the purpose.'”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“neither the antiquity of a practice nor the fact of steadfast legislative and judicial adherence to it through the centuries insulates it from constitutional attack”
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.