BURTON v. Sills’s Empirical Analysis
1968
Citation profile
5 federal appellate · 161 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 172 later decisions (2 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2016 · most notably District of Columbia v. Heller (2008), Rothman v. Rothman (1974)
5 federal appellate · 161 state decisions — followed in 12 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 United States v. Carolene Products Co. · Near v. State of Minnesota Olson · Tot v. United States · United States v. Cruikshank · Grosjean v. American Press Co.
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 172 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“[t]o any person where the issuance would not be in the interest of the public health, safety or welfare[.]”
4 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“firearms out of the hands of all dangerously unfit persons, noncriminal as well as criminal.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“The Legislature's goal was to keep guns out of the hands of unfit persons. To that end it disqualified certain classes which quickly come to mind. To guard against inadvertent omissions, it delegated authority to appropriately designated officials to disqualify any unfit individuals who, though not strictly within the enumerated classes, should not in the public interest be entrusted with firearms. To guard against arbitrary official action the Legislature directed early determination and provided for easy appeal to the county court.... Review from the county court is readily available in the Appellate Division and, when necessary, in this Court. As has been pointed out elsewhere, these safeguards are probably of greater significance than further details in the statutory standard. [Citations omitted.]”
2 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.