Dowling v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
1990
Citation profile
632 federal appellate · 129 district · 750 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,306 later decisions (42 by the Supreme Court) — most recently September 2025 · most notably Estelle v. McGuire (1991), Herrera v. Collins (1993)
632 federal appellate · 129 district · 750 state decisions — followed in 47 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
reviewedUnited States v. Dowling (from Third Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Chapman v. State of California · Blockburger v. United States · In the Matter of Samuel Winship · Ashe v. Swenson · United States v. Salerno
Cited together with Ashe v. Swenson · Estelle v. McGuire · Williams v. Taylor · Strickland v. Washington · Blockburger v. United States
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 2,306 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Dowling contends that, by the same principle, his prior acquittal precluded the Government from introducing into evidence Henry’s testimony at the third trial in the bank robbery case. We disagree because, unlike the situation in Ashe v. Swenson, the prior acquittal did not determine an ultimate issue in the present case. This much Dowling eon-cedes, and we decline to extend Ashe v. Swenson and the collateral-estoppel component of the Double Jeopardy Clause to exclude in all circumstances, as Dowling would have it, relevant and probative evidence that is otherwise admissible under the Rules of Evidence simply because it relates to alleged criminal conduct for which a defendant has been acquitted.”
18 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“demonstrate that the issue whose relitigation he seeks to foreclose was actually decided in the first proceeding.”
17 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“in the first trial, following an acquittal by a general verdict, we examine the record of the prior proceeding, taking into account the pleadings, evidence, charge, and other relevant matter, in order to determine”
16 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.