Ex parte Garland’s Empirical Analysis
71 U.S. 333 · 1866
Citation profile
218 federal appellate · 86 district · 373 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 968 later decisions (118 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2025 · most notably Bell v. Wolfish (1979), Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority (1936)
218 federal appellate · 86 district · 373 state decisions — followed in 47 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 Fletcher v. Peck · Rutherford v. Geddes · Respublica v. Gibbs
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 968 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“A pardon reaches both the punishment prescribed for the offence and the guilt of the offender; and when the pardon is full, it releases the punishment and blots out of existence the guilt, so that in the eye of the law the offender is as innocent as if he had never committed the offence. If granted before conviction, it prevents any of the penalties and disabilities consequent upon conviction from attaching; if granted after conviction, it removes the penalties and disabilities, and restores him to all his civil rights; it makes him, as it were, a new man, and gives him a new credit and capacity.”
67 later decisions quote this exact passage“[a] statute ... which designates no criminal, either by name or description--which declares no guilt, pronounces no sentence, and inflicts no punishment--can in no sense be called a bill of attainder.”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Attorneys at law, solicitors in chancery, and proctors and advocates in admiralty, who have been admitted to practice as such in the Supreme, or in the Circuit or District Court of the United States, or who have practiced for one year as such attorneys, counselors or solicitors in the highest court of a state or territory, shall be admitted to practice in this court upon producing evidence of such admission and practice, and upon certificate of some member of the bar of this court of good moral character and standing.” “Upon admission to practice the person so admitted shall take an oath to support the Constitution of the United States and of fidelity to his clients and to the court.” “For malpractice or other sufficient cause the court may direct the name of any attorney, counselor, solicitor, proctor or advocate to be stricken from the roll, and thereafter, unless restored, such person shall be incapable of appearing in any cause in this court.””
1 later decision quote this exact passagee.g. In re Thatcher
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.