Sell v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
2003
Citation profile
348 federal appellate · 69 district · 247 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,015 later decisions (5 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably Mohawk Industries, Inc. v. Carpenter (2009), Indiana v. Edwards (2008)
348 federal appellate · 69 district · 247 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
reviewedUnited States v. Sell (from Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Relies on Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp. · Steel Co. v. Citizens for a Better Environment · Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay · Illinois v. Allen
Cited together with Washington v. Harper · Riggins v. Nevada · Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp. · Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay · Flanagan 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 1,015 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“constitutionally protected liberty interest in avoiding the unwanted administration of antipsychotic drugs,”
85 later decisions quote this exact passage“The medical experts may find it easier to provide an informed opinion about whether, given the risk of side effects, particular drugs are medically appropriate and necessary to control a patient’s potentially dangerous behavior (or to avoid serious harm to the patient himself) than to try to balance harms and benefits related to the more quintessentially legal questions of trial fairness and competence.”
24 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“(1) conclusively determines the disputed question, (2) resolves an important issue completely separate from the merits of the action, and (3) is effectively unreviewable on appeal from a final judgment.”
6 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.