Baker v. McCollan’s Empirical Analysis
1979
Citation profile
1,860 federal appellate · 981 district · 589 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 6,919 later decisions (51 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Harlow v. Fitzgerald (1982), Graham v. Connor (1989)
1,860 federal appellate · 981 district · 589 state decisions — followed in 40 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
reviewedMcCollan v. Tate (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Terry v. Ohio · Estelle v. Gamble · Barker v. Wingo · United States v. Wade
Cited together with Monell v. Department of Social Services of City of New York · Harlow v. Fitzgerald · Parratt v. Taylor · Paul v. Davis · Daniels v. Williams
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 6,919 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Every person who, under color of any statute, ordinance, regulation, custom, or usage, of any State or Territory or the District of Columbia, subjects, or causes to be subjected, any citizen of the United States or other person within the jurisdiction thereof to the deprivation of any rights, privileges, or immunities secured by the Constitution and laws, shall be liable to the party injured in an action at law, suit in equity, or other proper proceeding for redress.”
390 later decisions quote this exact passage“a method for vindicating federal rights elsewhere conferred.”
56 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“required by the Constitution to investigate independently every claim of innocence, whether the claim is based on mistaken identity or a defense such as lack of requisite intent.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.