Davis v. Washington’s Empirical Analysis
2006
Citation profile
546 federal appellate · 52 district · 3,450 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 4,793 later decisions (29 by the Supreme Court) — most recently March 2026 · most notably Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts (2009), Whorton v. Bockting (2007)
546 federal appellate · 52 district · 3,450 state decisions — followed in 50 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 Washington Supreme Court)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 1001 (Comprehensive Thrift and Bank Fraud Prosecution and Taxpayer Recovery Act of 1990)
Relies on Miranda v. State of Arizona Vignera · Crawford v. Washington · Bruton v. United States · Whren v. United States · Ohio v. Roberts
Cited together with Crawford v. Washington · Ohio v. Roberts · Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts · Chapman v. State of California · Strickland v. Washington
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 4,793 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“Statements are nontestimonial when made in the course of police interrogation under circumstances objectively indicating that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to enable police assistance to meet an ongoing emergency. They are testimonial when the circumstances objectively indicate that there is no such ongoing emergency, and that the primary purpose of the interrogation is to establish or prove past events potentially relevant to later criminal prosecution.”
342 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“admission of testimonial statements of a witness who did not appear at trial unless he was unavailable to testify, and the defendant had had a prior opportunity for cross-examination.”
96 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[n]o `witness' goes into court to proclaim an emergency and seek help,”
72 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.