Ex parte Lange’s Empirical Analysis
85 U.S. 163 · 1873
Citation profile
625 federal appellate · 107 district · 674 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 1,833 later decisions (175 by the Supreme Court) — most recently July 2025 · most notably North Carolina v. Pearce (1969), Ex Parte: Edward T Young (1908)
625 federal appellate · 107 district · 674 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 Ex parte Burford · Wood v. May · Taylor v. Lusk
Cited together with North Carolina v. Pearce · United States v. Benz · Green v. United States · United States v. DiFrancesco · Benton v. Maryland
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 1,833 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“If there is anything settled in the jurisprudence of England and America, it is that no man can be twice lawfully punished for the same offence.”
111 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““If there is anything settled in the jurisprudence of England and America, it is that no man can be twice lawfully punished for the same offense. And though there have been nice questions in the application of this rule to cases, in which the act charged was such as to come within the definition of more than one statutory offense, or to bring the party within the jurisdiction of more than one court, there has never been any doubt of its entire and complete protection of the party when a second punishment is proposed in the same court, on the same facts, for the same statutory offense. * * * But it has been said that, conceding all this, the judgment under which the prisoner is now held is erroneous, but not void; and as this court, cannot review that judgment for error, it can discharge the prisoner only when it is void. But we do not concede the major premise in this argument. A judgment may be erroneous and not void, and it may be erroneous because it is void. The distinctions between void and merely voidable judgments, are very.nice, and they may fall under the one class or the other as they are regarded for different purposes. We are of opinion that when the prisoner, as in this case, by reason of a valid judgment, had fully suffered one of the alternative punishments to which alone the law subjected him, the-power of the court to punish further was gone; that the principle we have discussed then interposed its shield, and forbid that he should be punished again for that ”
22 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority“No person shall ... be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.”
6 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.