Marks v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
1,733 federal appellate · 239 district · 1,034 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4,342 later decisions (89 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Celotex Corporation v. Catrett H (1986), Schlup v. Delo (1995)
1,733 federal appellate · 239 district · 1,034 state decisions — followed in 45 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. Marks (from Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Buckley v. Valeo · Gregg v. Georgia · Hamling v. United States · Roth v. United States · Miller v. California
Cited together with Gregg v. Georgia · Bouie v. City of Columbia · Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Book Named 'John Cleland's Memoirs of Woman of Pleasure' v. Attorney General of Commonwealth of Massachusetts · Marsh v. Chambers
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 4,342 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“When a fragmented Court decides a case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds.”
184 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The Ex Post Facto Clause is a limitation upon the powers of the Legislature and does not of its own force apply to the Judicial Branch of government.”
51 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“(a) Patently offensive representation or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts normal or perverted, actual or simulated. (b) Patently offensive representation or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals. Id. at 2615. Section 28.50 of the Guam Code provides that a person is guilty of a misdemeanor if he: e. presents or directs an obscene performance or participates in that portion thereof which makes it obscene; or h. performs an obscene act or otherwise presents an obscene exhibition of his body in a public place.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.