Smith v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
1993
Citation profile
1,428 federal appellate · 184 district · 157 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,861 later decisions (56 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Bailey v. United States (1995), Federal Deposit Insurance v. Meyer (1994)
1,428 federal appellate · 184 district · 157 state decisions — followed in 26 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. Smith (from Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Taylor v. United States · United Sav. Assn. of Tex. v. Timbers of Inwood Forest Associates, Ltd. · United States v. Bass · Dewsnup v. Timm
Cited together with Bailey v. United States · Muscarello v. United States · Chevron U. S. A. Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. · Jackson v. Virginia · United States v. Olano
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 2,861 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“When a word is not defined by statute, we normally construe it in accord with its ordinary or natural meaning.”
184 later decisions quote this exact passage“during and in relation to ... [a] drug trafficking crime.”
26 later decisions quote this exact passage“'facilitat[e], or ha[ve] the potential of facilitating,' the drug trafficking offense.”
20 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.