Burgess v. Salmon’s Empirical Analysis
97 U.S. 381 · 1878
Citation profile
28 federal appellate · 16 district · 19 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 118 later decisions (8 by the Supreme Court) — most recently January 2026 · most notably Harisiades v. Shaughnessy (1951), United States v. Lovett (1946)
28 federal appellate · 16 district · 19 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 Fletcher v. Peck · Cummings v. The State of Missouri · Arnold v. The United States · Samuel Carpenter v. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
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 118 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the ex post facto effect of a law cannot be evaded by giving a civil form to that which is essentially criminal”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“To impose upon the owner of the goods a criminal punishment or a penalty”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“the earliest possible moment at which it could become a law”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majoritye.g. Mincey v. Head
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.