Johnson v. Jones’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 district · 17 state decisions

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 20 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““That the President of the United States has the rightful power in time of peace to causé a marshal :to arrest a citizen of Illinois without process and without any charge of crime legally preferred, and convey him to a distant state, and there imprison him without judicial writ or warrant in a military fortress, is a proposition which no one would have the hardihood to assert. That'such power in a season of peace cannot be safely intrusted to any government by a people claiming to be free is a political truism lying beyond the domain of argument. The right of the citizen to his personal liberty, except when restrained of it upon a charge of crime and for the purpose of judicial investigation, or under the command of the law pronounced through a judicial tribunal, is one of those elementary facts which lie at the foundation of our political structure. The cardinal object of our Constitution, as it is the end of all good government, is to secure the people in their right to life, liberty, and property. The more certainly to attain this end, the framers of our Constitution, not only proclaimed certain great principles in the Bill of Rights, but they distributed governmental powers into three distinct departments, each of which, while acting in its proper sphere, was designed to be independent of the others. To the legislative department it belongs to declare the causes for which the liberty of a citizen may be taken from him; to the judicial department to determine the existenc”

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ex parte Orozco · Gyenes v. State

2. ““The defendant Jones was at that time United States marshal for the Northern District of Illinois, and that said defendants Hawkins and Hopkins were his deputies; that as such marshal he was ordered by the President of the United States to arrest said plaintiff, as a measure proper for the suppression of the rebellion, and convey him to Ft. Lafayette; and that he did so arrest him, and convey him to said fort in a comfortable manner, and there delivered him to the custody of the officer in command of said fort, after which time the plaintiff was not in the custody of the defendant.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Ex parte Orozco