Cage v. Louisiana’s Empirical Analysis
1990
Citation profile
391 federal appellate · 42 district · 1,404 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,169 later decisions (15 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Estelle v. McGuire (1991), Neder v. United States (1999)
391 federal appellate · 42 district · 1,404 state decisions — followed in 40 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.
Relationships
Relies on Jackson v. Virginia · In the Matter of Samuel Winship · Francis v. Franklin · Taylor v. Kentucky
Cited together with Victor v. Nebraska · In the Matter of Samuel Winship · Sullivan v. Louisiana · Strickland v. Washington · Estelle v. McGuire
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 2,169 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If you entertain a reasonable doubt as to any fact or element necessary to constitute the defendant’s guilt, it is your duty to give him the benefit of that doubt and return a verdict of not guilty. Even where the evidence demonstrates a probability of guilt, if it does not establish such guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, you must acquit the accused. This doubt, however, must be a reasonable one; that is one that is founded upon a real tangible substantial basis and not upon mere caprice and conjecture. It must be such doubt as would give rise to a grave uncertainty, raised in your mind by reasons of the unsatisfactory character of the evidence or lack thereof. A reasonable doubt is not a mere possible doubt. It is an actual substantial doubt. It is a doubt that a reasonable man can seriously entertain. What is required is not an absolute or mathematical certainty, but a moral certainty.”
141 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“as they are commonly understood, suggest a higher degree of doubt than is required for acquittal under the reasonable doubt standard. When those statements are then considered with the reference to”
113 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[T]he Due Process Clause protects the accused against conviction except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged.”
42 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.