Rice v. Cayetano’s Empirical Analysis
2000
Citation profile
107 federal appellate · 64 district · 57 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 338 later decisions (23 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2026 · most notably Northwest Austin Municipal Utility District Number One v. Holder (2009), Shelby County v. Holder (2013)
107 federal appellate · 64 district · 57 state decisions
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
reviewedRice v. Cayetano (from Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 21 U.S.C. § 1177 · 25 U.S.C. § 1601 · 25 U.S.C. § 3001 (§ 2 of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act) · 25 U.S.C. § 476 · 25 U.S.C. § 479 · 42 U.S.C. § 11701 · 42 U.S.C. § 1996 · 42 U.S.C. § 2991
Relies on Morton v. Mancari · Massachusetts Board of Retirement v. Murgia · Santa Clara Pueblo v. Martinez · United States v. Detroit Timber & Lumber Co. · United States v. Wheeler
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 338 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“any descendant of the aboriginal peoples inhabiting the Hawaiian Islands which exercised sovereignty and subsisted in the Hawaiian Islands in 1778, and which peoples thereafter have continued to reside in Hawaii.”
29 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“that [ Mancari ] was confined to the authority of the BIA, an agency described as `sui generis'”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Brackeen v. Zinke · John Doe, a Minor, by His Mother and Next Friend, Jane Doe, and Josephine Helelani Pauahi Rabago, Intervenor, Kamehameha Schools/bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate Constance H. Lau, Nainoa Thompson, Diane J. Plotts, Robert K.U. Kihune, J. Douglasing, in Their Capacities as Trustees of the Kamehameha Schools/bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate“[a]lthough the classification [in Mancari ] had a racial component, the Court found it important that the preference was not directed towards a racial group consisting of Indians, but rather only to members of federally recognized tribes. In this sense, the Court held, the preference was political rather than racial in nature.”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. John Doe, a Minor, by His Mother and Next Friend, Jane Doe, and Josephine Helelani Pauahi Rabago, Intervenor, Kamehameha Schools/bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate Constance H. Lau, Nainoa Thompson, Diane J. Plotts, Robert K.U. Kihune, J. Douglasing, in Their Capacities as Trustees of the Kamehameha Schools/bernice Pauahi Bishop Estate · In Re AW
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.