Kelly v. Owen’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

6 federal appellate · 12 district · 12 state decisions

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 53 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “"As we construe this act, it confers the privileges of citizenship upon women married to citizens of the United States, if they are of the class of persons for whose naturalization the previous acts of Congress provide. The terms ‘married,’ or ‘who shall be married,’ do not refer, in our judgment, to the time when the ceremony of marriage is celebrated, but to a state of marriage. They mean that, whenever a woman, who under previous acts might be naturalized, is in a state of marriage to a citizen, whether his citizenship existed at the passage of the act or subsequently, or before or after the marriage she becomes, by that fact, a citizen also. His citizenship, whenever it exists, confers, under the act, citizenship upon her. The construction which would restrict the act to women whose husbands, at the time of marriage, are citizens, would exclude far the greater number, for whose benefit, as we think, the act was intended. Its object, in our opinion, was to allow her citizenship to follow that of her husband, without the necessity of any application for naturalization on her part; and, if this was the object, there is no reason for the restriction suggested.””

   6 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Miller v. Albright · United States v. Kellar

2. ““Any woman -who Is now, or may hereafter be, married to a citizen of the United States, and who might herself be lawfully naturalized, shall be deemed a citizen.””

   3 later decisions quote this exact passage
   e.g. In re Rustigian · Sprung v. Morton

3. ““The term, ‘who might lawfully be naturalized under the existing laws,’ only limits the application of the law to free white women. The previous Naturalization Act, existing at the time, only required that the person applying for its benefits should be ‘a free white person’ and not an alien enemy.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States ex rel. Sejnensky v. Tod