Ward v. Illinois’s Empirical Analysis
1977
Citation profile
40 federal appellate · 98 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 209 later decisions (17 by the Supreme Court) — most recently May 2013 · most notably New York v. Ferber (1982), Minnesota v. Clover Leaf Creamery Co. (1981)
40 federal appellate · 98 state decisions — followed in 17 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.
Relationships
Relies on New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · Broadrick v. Oklahoma · Grayned v. City of Rockford · Hamling v. United States · Roth 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 209 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““The Illinois court plainly intended to conform the Illinois law to part (b) of Miller, and there is no reason to doubt that, in incorporating the guideline as part of the law, the Illinois court intended as well to adopt the Miller examples, which gave substantive meaning to part (b) by indicating the kinds of materials within its reach. The alternative reading of the decision would lead us to the untenable conclusion that the Illinois Supreme Court chose to create a fatal flaw in its statute by refusing to take cognizance of the specificity requirements set down by Miller.” (Ward v. Illinois (1977), 431 U.S. 767, 775 , 52 L. Ed. 2d 738, 747 , 97 S. Ct. 2085, 2090 .)”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence““ ‘A thing is obscene if, considered as a whole, its predominant appeal is to prurient interest, that is, a shameful or morbid interest in nudity, sex or excretion, and if it goes substantially beyond customary limits of candor in description or representation of such matters. A thing is obscene even though the obscenity is latent, as in the case of undeveloped photographs.’ ” (_U.S._,_, 52 L. Ed. 2d 738, 743-44 , 97 S. Ct. 2085, 2088 .)”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence““* * * it is plain enough from its prior cases and from its response to Miller that the Illinois Court recognizes the limitations on the kinds of sexual conduct which may not be represented or depicted under the obscenity laws * ° (_U.S._,_, 52 L. Ed. 2d 738, 747 , 97 S. Ct. 2085, 2091 .)”
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.