Bearden v. Georgia’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
363 federal appellate · 19 district · 1,627 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,386 later decisions (30 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Lewis Director Arizona Department of Corrections v. Casey (1996), Ake v. Oklahoma (1985)
363 federal appellate · 19 district · 1,627 state decisions — followed in 48 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 Morrissey v. Brewer · North Carolina v. Pearce · Gagnon v. Scarpelli · Griffin v. People of the State of Illinois · Douglas v. People of State of California
Cited together with Williams v. Illinois · Tate v. Short · Gagnon v. Scarpelli · Morrissey v. Brewer · Griffin v. People of the State of Illinois
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 2,386 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[d]ue process and equal protection principles converge”
177 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Evitts v. Lucey · Black v. Romano“[T]he more appropriate question is whether consideration of a defendant's financial background in setting or resetting a sentence is so arbitrary or unfair as to be a denial of due process.”
13 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“If the probationer has willfully refused to pay the fine or restitution when he has the means to pay, the State is perfectly justified in using imprisonment as a sanction to enforce collection.... But if the probationer has made all reasonable efforts to pay the fine or restitution, and yet cannot do so through no fault of his own, it is fundamentally unfair to revoke probation automatically without considering whether adequate alternative methods of punishing the defendant are available.”
11 later decisions quote this exact passagee.g. Black v. Romano · Sharrow v. People
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.