United States v. Powell’s Empirical Analysis
1975
Citation profile
359 federal appellate · 72 district · 473 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,152 later decisions (24 by the Supreme Court) — most recently August 2024 · most notably Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc. (1982), Kolender v. Lawson (1983)
359 federal appellate · 72 district · 473 state decisions — followed in 38 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. Powell (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 1715
Relies on Dandridge v. Williams · Connally v. General Construction Co. · Lanzetta v. State New Jersey · United States v. Mazurie · United States v. Petrillo
Cited together with United States v. Mazurie · Hoffman Estates v. Flipside, Hoffman Estates, Inc. · Kolender v. Lawson · Connally v. General Construction Co. · Smith v. Goguen
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 1,152 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[V]agueness challenges to statutes which do not involve First Amendment freedoms must be examined in the light of the facts of the case at hand.”
24 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“Congress might, without difficulty, have chosen 'clearer and more precise language' equally capable of achieving the end which it sought.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[S]training to inject doubt as to the meaning of words where no doubt would be felt by the normal reader is not required by the 'void for vagueness' doctrine, and we will not indulge in it.”
9 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.