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← 492 U.S. 573 - County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union

County of Allegheny v. American Civil Liberties Union’s Empirical Analysis

1989

Citation profile

2,109
cited by 2,109 later decisions
58
cited 58 times by the Supreme Court
22
states following
June 2025
most recently cited

830 federal appellate · 220 district · 125 state decisions

How this case has been cited

Cited by 2,109 later decisions (58 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably United States v. Lopez (1995), Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida (1996)

830 federal appellate · 220 district · 125 state decisions — followed in 22 states

802019891990200020102020decided

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

reviewedthe decision below (from Third Circuit Court of Appeals)

Relationships

Applies 2 U.S.C. § 61D · 31 U.S.C. § 5112 (Gold Bullion Coin Act of 1985) · 4 U.S.C. § 4

Relies on McGowan v. State of Maryland Gallagher · Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · Lemon v. Kurtzman · New York v. Ferber · West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette

Cited together with Lemon v. Kurtzman · Lynch v. Donnelly · Lee v. Weisman · Wallace v. Jaffree · Edwards v. Aguillard

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 2,109 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

  1. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.”
    203 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
    e.g. Board of Ed. of Westside Community Schools (Dist. 66) v. Mergens · Board of Education of Kiryas Joel Village School District v. Grumet Board of Education of Monroe-Woodbury Central School District
  2. “making adherence to a religion relevant in any way to a person's standing in the political community.”
    11 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
    e.g. Capitol Square Review & Advisory Board v. Pinette · American Atheists, Inc. v. Duncan
  3. “As a general rule, the principle of stare decisis directs us to adhere not only to the holdings of our prior cases, but also to their explications of the governing rules of law.”
    10 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
    e.g. Rodriguez v. Miller · Arandell Corp. v. Centerpoint Energy Servs., Inc.

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.