North Carolina v. Rice’s Empirical Analysis
1971
Citation profile
1,021 federal appellate · 311 district · 123 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,551 later decisions (55 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably United States Parole Commission v. Geraghty (1980), Blackledge v. Perry (1974)
1,021 federal appellate · 311 district · 123 state decisions — followed in 20 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
reviewedWood v. Ross (from Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on North Carolina v. Pearce · Aetna Life Ins Co of Hartford Conn v. Haworth · Powell v. McCormack · United State v. Morgan · Carafas v. J
Cited together with Marco Defunis et al. v. Charles Odegaard, President of the University of Washington. · Powell v. McCormack · Aetna Life Ins Co of Hartford Conn v. Haworth · United States v. Munsingwear, Inc. · United States v. W. T. Grant Co.
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 2,551 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[F]ederal courts are without power to decide questions that cannot affect the rights of litigants in the case before them.”
84 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a real and substantial controversy admitting of specific relief through a decree of a conclusive character, as distinguished from an opinion advising what the law would be upon a hypothetical state of facts.”
41 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“review moot cases derives from the requirement of Article III of the Constitution under which the exercise of judicial power depends upon the existence of a case or controversy.”
25 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.