Addington v. Texas’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
854 federal appellate · 225 district · 2,946 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 5,095 later decisions (163 by the Supreme Court) — most recently October 2025 · most notably Anderson v. Liberty Lobby, Inc. (1986), Jackson v. Virginia (1979)
854 federal appellate · 225 district · 2,946 state decisions — followed in 49 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 Mathews v. Eldridge · In the Matter of Samuel Winship · Hanson v. Denckla · Gault
Cited together with Mathews v. Eldridge · In the Matter of Samuel Winship · Santosky v. Kramer · Vitek v. Jones · O'Connor v. Donaldson
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 5,095 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“instruct the factfinder concerning the degree of confidence our society thinks he should have in the correctness of factual conclusions for a particular type of adjudication.”
169 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The state has a legitimate interest under its parens patriae powers in providing care to its citizens who are unable because of emotional disorders to care for themselves; the state also has authority under its police power to protect the community from the dangerous tendencies of some who are mentally ill.”
106 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“The individual should not be asked to share equally with society the risk of error when the possible injury to the individual is significantly greater than any possible harm to the state.”
75 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrencee.g. Santosky v. Kramer · Suzuki v. Yuen
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.