Smith v. O'CONNELL’s Empirical Analysis
1997
Citation profile
2 federal appellate · 3 district · 9 state decisions
Relationships
Relies on Cantwell v. State of Connecticut · Employment Division Department of Human Resources of Oregon v. L Smith · City of Boerne v. Flores · Mahan & Rowsey, Inc. v. Oklahoma Natural Gas · Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah
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 14 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“establish the general proposition that a law that is neutral and of general applicability need not be justified by a compelling governmental interest even if the law has the incidental effect of burdening a particular religious practice____ Neutrality and general applicability are interrelated____A law failing to satisfy these requirements must be justified by a compelling governmental interest and must be narrowly tailored to advance that interest.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority“threshold inquiry is whether there is a conflict between conduct that is required by law and conduct that is prohibited by religious principles.”
1 later decision 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.