Stone v. Graham’s Empirical Analysis
1981
Citation profile
379 federal appellate · 75 district · 80 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 938 later decisions (52 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Kansas v. Hendricks (1997), Widmar v. Vincent (1981)
379 federal appellate · 75 district · 80 state decisions — followed in 19 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 McGowan v. State of Maryland Gallagher · Lemon v. Kurtzman · School District of Abington Township Pennsylvania v. Schempp J Murray III · Engel v. Vitale · Committee for Public Education & Religious Liberty v. Nyquist
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 938 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The Ten Commandments are undeniably a sacred text in the Jewish and Christian faiths, and no legislative recitation of a supposed secular purpose can blind us to that fact.”
57 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The secular application of the Ten Commandments is clearly seen in its adoption as the fundamental legal code of Western Civilization and the Common Law of the United States.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“an excessive government entanglement with religion.”
11 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.