Hamling v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
1974
Citation profile
3,057 federal appellate · 546 district · 1,316 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6,577 later decisions (187 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Almendarez-Torres v. United States (1998), Landgraf v. USI Film Products (1994)
3,057 federal appellate · 546 district · 1,316 state decisions — followed in 48 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 v. Hamling (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Glasser v. United States · Roth v. United States · Linkletter v. Walker · Miller v. California
Cited together with Glasser v. United States · Miller v. California · Russell v. United States · Roth v. United States · Paris Adult Theatre I v. Slaton
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 6,577 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[A]n indictment is sufficient if it, first, contains the elements of the offense charged and fairly informs a defendant of the charge against which he must defend, and, second, enables him to plead an acquittal or conviction in bar of future prosecutions for the same offense.”
377 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(a) Whoever knowingly and willfully deposits for conveyance * * * any letter * * * containing any threat to take the life of or to inflict bodily harm upon the President of the United States * * * or knowingly and willfully otherwise makes any such threat against the President * * * shall be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. (Emphasis added).”
16 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“the average person, applying contemporary standards”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.