Mayer v. City of Chicago’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
149 federal appellate · 27 district · 511 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 874 later decisions (23 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez (1973), Bounds v. Smith (1977)
149 federal appellate · 27 district · 511 state decisions — followed in 36 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 Griffin v. People of the State of Illinois · Shapiro v. Thompson · Coppedge v. United States · Rinaldi v. Yeager · Draper v. Washington
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 874 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“if they place before the appellate court an equivalent report of the events at trial from which the appellant's contentions arise.”
30 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Lugo v. Munoz · Madera v. Risley“In terms of a trial record, this means that the State must afford the indigent a record of sufficient completeness to permit proper consideration of [his or her] claims.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“This argument misconceives the principle of Griffin .... [I]ts principle is a flat prohibition against pricing indigent defendants out of as effective an appeal as would be available to others able to pay their own way. The invidiousness of the discrimination that exists when criminal procedures are made available only to those who can pay is not erased by any differences in the sentences that may be imposed.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Thomas v. Haslam · Thomas v. Haslam
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.