Miller v. Alabama’s Empirical Analysis
567 U.S. 460 · 2012
Citation profile
29 federal appellate · 2 district · 1,428 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,600 later decisions (6 by the Supreme Court) — most recently June 2026 · most notably State v. Belton (Slip Opinion) (2016), Jones v. Mississippi (2021)
29 federal appellate · 2 district · 1,428 state decisions — followed in 46 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 Estelle v. Gamble · Gregg v. Georgia · Furman v. Georgia · Lockett v. Ohio · Solem v. Helm
Cited together with Roper Superintendent Potosi Correctional Center v. Simmons · Miller v. Alabama · Graham v. Florida · Montgomery v. Louisiana · Graham v. Florida
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 1,600 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“children are constitutionally different from adults for purposes of sentencing.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“take into account how children are different, and how those differences counsel against irrevocably sentencing them to a lifetime in prison.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“[A] judge or jury must have the opportunity to consider mitigating circumstances before imposing the harshest possible penalty for juveniles.”
4 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.