Neil v. Biggers’s Empirical Analysis
1972
Citation profile
2,335 federal appellate · 270 district · 7,683 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 12,351 later decisions (84 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Manson v. Brathwaite (1977), Cuyler v. Sullivan (1980)
2,335 federal appellate · 270 district · 7,683 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.
Appellate journey
reviewedBiggers v. Neil (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Mapp v. Ohio · Simmons v. United States · Stovall v. Denno · Fay v. Noia
Cited together with Simmons v. United States · Manson v. Brathwaite · Stovall v. Denno · United States v. Wade · Foster v. 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 12,351 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the opportunity of the witness to view the criminal at the time of the crime, the witness’ degree of attention, the accuracy of the witness’ prior description of the criminal, the level of certainty demonstrated by the witness at the confrontation, and the length of time between the crime and the confrontation.”
808 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“substantial likelihood of misidentification.”
47 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“so unnecessarily suggestive and conducive to irreparable mistaken identification”
20 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.