United States v. Antelope’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
355 federal appellate · 65 district · 108 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 706 later decisions (21 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2025 · most notably United States v. Wheeler (1978), Washington v. Confederated Tribes of the Colville Indian Reservation (1980)
355 federal appellate · 65 district · 108 state decisions — followed in 16 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. Antelope (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Morton v. Mancari · Bullock v. United States · United States v. Mazurie · Williams v. Lee · Keeble 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 706 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[W]e reject the argument that denying [the Indian plaintiffs] access to the Montana courts constitutes impermissible racial discrimination. The exclusive jurisdiction of the Tribal Court does not derive from the race of the plaintiff but rather from the quasi-sovereign status of the Northern Cheyenne Tribe under federal law.”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“federal legislation with respect to Indian tribes, although relating to Indians as such, is not based upon impermissible racial classifications.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““[MJembers of Tribes whose official status has been terminated by congressional enactment are no longer subject, by virtue of their status, to federal criminal jurisdiction under the Major Crimes Act.””
4 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.