United States v. Morrison’s Empirical Analysis
2000
Citation profile
1,080 federal appellate · 231 district · 135 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 2,639 later decisions (60 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably United States v. Booker (2004), McDonald v. City of Chicago (2010)
1,080 federal appellate · 231 district · 135 state decisions — followed in 25 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
reviewedthe decision below (from Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Adickes v. S. H. Kress & Co. · United States v. Nixon · Williamson v. Lee Optical of Oklahoma, Inc. · United States v. Lopez · Lugar v. Edmondson Oil Co.
Cited together with United States v. Lopez · Jones v. United States · Wickard v. Filburn · Gonzalez v Raich · Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States
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 2,639 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Due respect for the decisions of a coordinate branch of Government demands that we invalidate a congressional enactment only upon a plain showing that Congress has exceeded its constitutional bounds.”
153 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“In every case where we have sustained federal regulation under Wickard's aggregation principle, the regulated activity was of an apparent commercial character.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent“an essential part of a larger regulation of economic activity, in which the regulatory scheme could be undercut unless the intrastate activity were regulated.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the dissent
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.