Illinois v. Somerville’s Empirical Analysis
1973
Citation profile
779 federal appellate · 82 district · 1,513 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,691 later decisions (58 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Arizona v. Washington (1978), Oregon v. Kennedy (1982)
779 federal appellate · 82 district · 1,513 state decisions — followed in 50 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
reviewedUnited States ex rel. Somerville v. Illinois (from Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Benton v. Maryland · Green v. United States · United States v. Jorn · Wade v. Hunter · Russell v. United States
Cited together with United States v. Jorn · Wade v. Hunter · Arizona v. Washington · Green v. United States · Downum v. United States
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 2,691 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“We think, that in all cases of this nature, the law has invested Courts of justice with the authority to discharge a jury from giving any verdict, whenever, in their opinion, taking all the circumstances into consideration, there is a manifest necessity for the act, or the ends of public justice would otherwise be defeated.”
87 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“A trial judge properly exercises his discretion to declare a mistrial if an impartial verdict cannot be reached, or if a verdict of conviction could be reached but would have to be reversed on appeal due to an obvious procedural error in the trial.”
34 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“the public's interest in fair trials designed to end in just judgments.”
33 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.