United States v. Armstrong’s Empirical Analysis
1996
Citation profile
776 federal appellate · 301 district · 388 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,629 later decisions (20 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Janet Reno, Attorney General v. American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee et al. (1999), Hartman v. Moore (2006)
776 federal appellate · 301 district · 388 state decisions — followed in 35 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. Armstrong (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Brady v. State of Maryland · Batson v. Kentucky · Hickman v. Taylor · Bolling v. Sharpe · Yick Wo v. Hopkins
Cited together with Wayte v. United States · Bordenkircher v. Hayes · Oyler v. Boles · McCleskey v. Kemp · Brady v. State of Maryland
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 2,629 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Judicial deference to the decisions of these executive officers rests in part on an assessment of the relative competence of prosecutors and courts. Such factors as the strength of the case, the prosecution’s general deterrence value, the Government’s enforcement priorities, and the case’s relationship to the Government’s overall enforcement plan are not readily susceptible to the kind of analysis the courts are competent to undertake. It also stems from a concern not to unnecessarily impair the performance of a core executive constitutional function.”
30 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“To establish a discriminatory effect in a race case, the claimant must show that similarly situated individuals of a different race were not prosecuted.”
28 later decisions quote this exact passage“a credible showing of different treatment of similarly situated persons.”
28 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.