Justices of Boston Municipal Court v. Lydon’s Empirical Analysis
1984
Citation profile
397 federal appellate · 73 district · 304 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,002 later decisions (29 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2025 · most notably United States v. Ursery (1996), Lockhart v. Nelson (1988)
397 federal appellate · 73 district · 304 state decisions — followed in 35 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
reviewedLydon v. Justices of the Boston Municipal Court (from First Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Jackson v. Virginia · Younger v. Harris · Wainwright v. Sykes · Burks v. United States · Benton v. Maryland
Cited together with Burks v. United States · Richardson v. United States · Ball v. United States · Green v. United States · Hensley v. Municipal Court, San Jose-Milpitas Judicial Dist., Santa Clara Cty.
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 1,002 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“It protects against a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal, against a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction, and against multiple punishments for the same offense.”
55 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[W]hen a defendant challenging his conviction on appeal contends both that the trial was infected by error and that the evidence was constitutionally insufficient, the court may not, consistent with the rule of Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1 [ 98 S.Ct. 2141 , 57 L.Ed.2d 1 ] (1978), ignore the sufficiency claim, reverse on grounds of trial error, and remand for trial.... [I]f retrial is to be had, the evidence must be found to be legally sufficient, as a matter of federal law, to sustain the jury verdict.”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence““The writ of habeas corpus shall not extend to a prisoner unless * * * (3) He is in custody in violation of the Constitution or laws or treaties of the United States * * *.””
6 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.