Burson v. Freeman’s Empirical Analysis
1992
Citation profile
384 federal appellate · 128 district · 269 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,201 later decisions (52 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2026 · most notably Garcetti v. Ceballos (2006), Rav v. City of St Paul Minnesota (1992)
384 federal appellate · 128 district · 269 state decisions — followed in 29 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 Baker v. Carr · Buckley v. Valeo · Reynolds v. Sims · Ward v. Rock Against Racism · Perry Education Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators' Ass'n
Cited together with Ward v. Rock Against Racism · Perry Education Ass'n v. Perry Local Educators' Ass'n · Buckley v. Valeo · Members of the City Council of Los Angeles v. Taxpayers for Vincent · Rav v. City of St Paul Minnesota
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 1,201 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“States adopt laws to address the problems that confront them. The First Amendment does not require States to regulate for problems that do not exist.”
86 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“history, consensus, and 'simple common sense.'”
24 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“necessary to serve a compelling state interest and that it is narrowly drawn to achieve that end.”
12 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.