94 Ill. 2d 378 - People v. Free’s Empirical Analysis
1983
Citation profile
7 federal appellate · 403 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 435 later decisions (5 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 2026 · most notably McDougall v. North Carolina (1983), 128 Ill. 2d 1 - People v. Young (1989)
7 federal appellate · 403 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.
Relationships
Relies on Gregg v. Georgia · Witherspoon v. Illinois · Furman v. Georgia · Lockett v. Ohio · Draper v. United States
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 435 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“any tendency to make any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence”
3 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Simply stated, a voluntary intoxication or a voluntary drugged condition does not raise the defense of insanity, but is governed by section 6 — 3 and may be used to negate the existence of the mental state which is an element of the crime. (111. Rev. Stat. 1977, ch. 38, par. 6 — 3.) A voluntary intoxication or a voluntary drugged condition precludes the use of the insanity defense unless the mental disease or defect is traceable to the habitual or chronic use of drugs or alcohol [citation] and such use results in a ‘settled’ or ‘fixed’ permanent type of insanity.” (Emphasis in original.)”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““Our statute clearly provides that the only finding necessary in determining the admissibility of evidence at the aggravation/mitigation phase is that the evidence be relevant. The rules of evidence, as provided in section 9— 1(e), are suspended at this stage, so that the judge or jury, as the sentencing authority, may have all relevant evidence before it. In this phase of the sentencing hearing, the State and defendant are allowed considerable leeway in the presentation of relevant evidence as long as the evidence is also reliable.””
2 later decisions 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.