Murphy v. Florida’s Empirical Analysis
1975
Citation profile
780 federal appellate · 113 district · 1,616 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,140 later decisions (40 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2025 · most notably United States v. Cronic (1984), Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia (1980)
780 federal appellate · 113 district · 1,616 state decisions — followed in 47 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
reviewedMurphy v. Florida (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Irvin v. Dowd · Sheppard v. Maxwell · Estes v. Texas · Rideau v. Louisiana
Cited together with Irvin v. Dowd · Sheppard v. Maxwell · Rideau v. Louisiana · Patton v. Yount · Estes v. Texas
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 3,140 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“To hold that the mere existence of any preconceived notion as to the guilt or innocence of an accused, without more, is sufficient to rebut the presumption of a prospective juror's impartiality would be to establish an impossible standard. It is sufficient if the juror can lay aside his impression or opinion and render a verdict based on the evidence presented in court.”
231 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The length to which the trial court must go in order to select jurors who appear to be impartial is another factor relevant in evaluating those jurors' assurances of impartiality.”
47 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a trial atmosphere that had been utterly corrupted by press coverage.”
18 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.