Furman v. Georgia’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
1,594 federal appellate · 266 district · 4,974 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 8,496 later decisions (395 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2025 · most notably Strickland v. Washington (1984), Gregg v. Georgia (1976)
1,594 federal appellate · 266 district · 4,974 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
Applies 10 U.S.C. § 885 · 10 U.S.C. § 906 · 10 U.S.C. § 920 · 18 U.S.C. § 1751 · 18 U.S.C. § 1992 · 18 U.S.C. § 2031 · 18 U.S.C. § 2381 · 18 U.S.C. § 34
Relies on Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Johnson v. Zerbst · Gideon v. Wainwright · Mapp v. Ohio · Townsend v. Sain
Cited together with Gregg v. Georgia · Lockett v. Ohio · Woodson v. North Carolina · Proffitt v. Florida · Eddings v. Oklahoma
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 8,496 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The penalty of death differs from all other forms of criminal punishment, not in degree but in kind. It is unique in its total irrevocability. It is unique in its rejection of rehabilitation of the convict as a basic purpose of criminal justice. And it is unique, finally, in its absolute renunciation of all that is embodied in our concept of humanity.”
278 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments.”
27 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]hese discretionary statutes are unconstitutional in their operation.”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.