Doe v. Stegall’s Empirical Analysis
653 F.2d 180 · 1981
Citation profile
36 federal appellate · 16 district · 23 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 147 later decisions — most recently January 2026 · most notably James, United States v. Microsoft Corp. (1995)
36 federal appellate · 16 district · 23 state decisions — followed in 16 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 Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp. · Coopers & Lybrand v. Livesay · Abney v. United States · Richmond Newspapers, Inc. v. Virginia · Marco Defunis et al. v. Charles Odegaard, President of the University of 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 147 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“customary and constitutionally-embedded presumption of openness in judicial proceedings.”
16 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Doe v. McKesson · In re Sealed“compelled to admit [his] intention to engage in illegal conduct, thereby risking criminal prosecution.”
8 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Doe v. McKesson · Doe v. McKesson“(1) whether the plaintiffs seeking anonymity are suing to challenge governmental activity; (2) whether prosecution of the suit will compel the plaintiffs to disclose information of the utmost intimacy; (3) whether the litigation compels plaintiffs to disclose an intention to violate the law, thereby risking criminal prosecution; and (4) whether the plaintiffs are children.”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Doe v. McKesson · Doe v. McKesson
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.