Van Orden v. Perry’s Empirical Analysis
2005
Citation profile
237 federal appellate · 58 district · 38 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 554 later decisions (13 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2025 · most notably Salazar v. Buono (2010), Mastrovincenzo v. The City of New York R 04-2264-Cv (2006)
237 federal appellate · 58 district · 38 state decisions — followed in 11 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
reviewedVan Orden v. Perry (from Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 42 U.S.C. § 1983 (Civil Rights Act of 1871 / Section 1983 (Ku Klux Klan Act))
Relies on McGowan v. State of Maryland Gallagher · Lemon v. Kurtzman · Agostini v. Felton Chancellor Board of Education of the City of New York · School District of Abington Township Pennsylvania v. Schempp J Murray III · Rosenberger v. Rector & Visitors of University of Virginia
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 554 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Whatever may be the fate of the Lemon test in the larger scheme of Establishment Clause jurisprudence, we think it not useful in dealing with the sort of passive monument that Texas has erected on its Capitol grounds. Instead, our analysis is driven both by the nature of the monument and by our Nation’s history.”
14 later decisions quote this exact passage“Simply having religious content or promoting a message consistent with a religious doctrine does not run afoul of the Establishment Clause”
9 later decisions quote this exact passage“'[t]here is an unbroken history of official acknowledgment by all three branches of government of the role of religion in American life from at least 1789.' " Id . (quoting Lynch v. Donnelly , 465 U.S. 668 , 674, 104 S.Ct. 1355 , 79 L.Ed.2d 604 (1984) ). That "history,”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage
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.