United States v. Halper’s Empirical Analysis
1989
Citation profile
836 federal appellate · 294 district · 1,923 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 3,963 later decisions (34 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably United States v. Dixon (1993), Kansas v. Hendricks (1997)
836 federal appellate · 294 district · 1,923 state decisions — followed in 49 states
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. A case is still cited after being overruled — to note the reversal, distinguish it, or in dissent. 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 North Carolina v. Pearce · Bell v. Wolfish · Missouri v. Hunter · Kennedy v. Mendoza-Martinez
Cited together with Department of Revenue of Mont. v. Kurth Ranch · Austin v. United States · North Carolina v. Pearce · United States v. Ursery · United States v. Ward
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 3,963 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“a civil sanction that cannot fairly be said solely to serve a remedial purpose, but rather can only be explained as also serving either retributive or deterrent purposes, is punishment, as we have come to understand the term.”
348 later decisions quote this exact passage“[N]or shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.”
40 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[I]n determining whether a particular civil sanction constitutes criminal punishment, it is the purposes actually served by the sanction in question, not the underlying nature of the proceeding giving rise to the sanction, that must be evaluated.”
38 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.