Ralston v. Robinson’s Empirical Analysis
1982
Citation profile
109 federal appellate · 21 district · 55 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 218 later decisions (6 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2025 · most notably Oregon v. Ice (2009), Daye v. Attorney General of New York (1982)
109 federal appellate · 21 district · 55 state decisions — followed in 12 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
reviewedRobinson v. Ralston (from Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Blockburger v. United States · North Carolina v. Pearce · Gault · Whalen v. United States · United States v. DiFrancesco
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 218 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“judge who sentences a youth offender to a consecutive adult term may require that the offender also serve the remainder of his youth sentence as an adult.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“The dissenting opinion asserts that our interpretation of congressional intent is inconsistent with the common-law rule that “a punishment already partly suffered be not increased.” That common-law rule simply does not apply when Congress has provided a court with the power to modify a sentence in light of changed circumstances. For example, a court may impose a suspended sentence and probation, under the general probation statute or under the YCA. If the defendant violates the terms of his probation, the court may “increase” the punishment by requiring him to serve the initial sentence. Here, the statute permits a judge to modify the conditions of a YCA sentence if the offender is convicted of a subsequent adult crime and if further YCA treatment would be futile. In each case, the sentencing statute invests the court with the power to modify conditions in light of the subsequent offense.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“Committed youth offenders not conditionally released shall undergo treatment in institutions ... and other agencies.... Insofar as practical, such institutions and agencies shall be used only for treatment of committed youth offenders, and such youth offenders shall be segregated from other offenders, and classes of committed youth offenders shall be segregated according to their needs for treatment.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.