Ashcroft Attorney General v. American Civil Liberties Union et al.’s Empirical Analysis
2004
Citation profile
215 federal appellate · 76 district · 98 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 592 later decisions (14 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2025 · most notably Gonzales v. O Centro Espírita Beneficente União Do Vegetal (2006), McCreary County v. American Civil Liberties Union of Ky. (2005)
215 federal appellate · 76 district · 98 state decisions — followed in 18 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
reviewedAmerican Civil Liberties Union v. Ashcroft (from Third Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 2252B · 28 U.S.C. § 1254 · 47 U.S.C. § 223 · 47 U.S.C. § 231 · 47 U.S.C. § 941
Relies on Roth v. United States · Miller v. California · National Labor Relations Board v. Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. · Marks v. United States · Crowell v. Benson
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 592 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“ask whether the challenged regulation is the least restrictive means among available, effective alternatives.”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“We ... conclude that [the government has] failed to demonstrate that the [law at issue] is 'closely fitted' to further a 'compelling governmental interest.' "). The government must carry its burden even at this preliminary stage. That is, Ray "must be deemed likely to prevail unless the Government has shown that [his] proposed less restrictive alternatives are less effective than”
7 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“[fjilters are less restrictive than COPA. They impose selective restrictions on speech at the receiving end, not universal restrictions at the source. Under a filtering regime, adults without children may gain access to speech they have a right to see without having to identify themselves or provide their credit card information. Even adults with children may obtain access to the same speech on the same terms simply by turning off the filter on their home computers. Above all, promoting the use of filters does not condemn as criminal any category of speech, and so the potential chilling effect is eliminated, or at least much diminished. All of these things are true, moreover, regardless of how broadly or narrowly the definitions in COPA are construed.”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.