McDonald v. Smith’s Empirical Analysis
1985
Citation profile
256 federal appellate · 70 district · 188 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 769 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2022 · most notably District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), 27 Cal. App. 4th 809 - Wilcox v. Superior Court (1994)
256 federal appellate · 70 district · 188 state decisions — followed in 26 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
reviewedSmith v. McDonald (from Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on New York Times Co. v. Sullivan · National Association for Advancement of Colored People v. Y Button · Chaplinsky v. State of New Hampshire · California Motor Transport Co. v. Trucking Unlimited · Garrison v. State of Louisiana
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 769 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“The Petition Clause ... was inspired by the same ideals of liberty and democracy that gave us the freedoms to speak, publish, and assemble. These First Amendment rights are inseparable, and there is no sound basis for granting greater constitutional protection to statements made in a petition ... than other First Amendment expressions.”
47 later decisions quote this exact passage“the right of the people ... to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
15 later decisions quote this exact passage“The Petition Clause ... was inspired by the same ideals of liberty and democracy that gave us the freedoms to speak, publish, and assemble. These First Amendment rights are inseparable, and there is no sound basis for granting greater constitutional protection to statements made in a petition to the President than other First Amendment expressions.”
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.