Maracich v. Spears’s Empirical Analysis
570 U.S. 48 · 2013
Citation profile
9 federal appellate · 1 district · 8 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 93 later decisions (11 by the Supreme Court) — most recently December 2025 · most notably Jennings v. Rodriguez (2018), 138 S. Ct. 1134 - Encino Motorcars, LLC v. Navarro (2018)
9 federal appellate · 1 district · 8 state decisions
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 Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals)
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 1512 · 18 U.S.C. § 2721 (§ 300002 of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994) · 18 U.S.C. § 2723 (§ 300002 of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994) · 49 U.S.C. § 31308
Relies on Younger v. Harris · Morales v. Trans World Airlines, Inc. · New York State Conference of Blue Cross & Blue Shield Plans v. Travelers Insurance · Bates v. State Bar of Arizona · Leocal v. Ashcroft
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 93 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“operate to the farthest reach of [its] linguistic possibilities”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“a grievous ambiguity or uncertainty in the statute”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“[t]he phrase 'in connection with' is essentially indeterminate because connections, like relations, stop nowhere. So the phrase 'in connection with' provides little guidance without a limiting principle consistent with the structure of the statute and its other provisions.”
1 later decision 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.