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impartiality

Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court

Definitions from Case Law

From 339 U.S. 162 - Dennis v. United States · 1950Most cited · 1,036 citing opinions

jury

Impartiality is not a technical conception. It is a state of mind. For the ascertainment of this mental attitude of appropriate indifference, the Constitution lays down no particular tests and procedure is not chained to any ancient and artificial formula.

How the Supreme Court has restated “impartiality”

193619401950 most cited: 339 U.S. 162 - Dennis v. United States (1950)
first statedrestated (same sense)

Each Supreme Court definition of “impartiality,” sized by how often later courts cited it. “Change” is measured by wording overlap with earlier definitions — a rough signal, not a semantic judgment.

How often courts cite the cases defining “impartiality”

19101920194019601980200020202030480

Court decisions citing the 3 opinions that defined “impartiality” — 2,768 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining cases as a whole, not verified uses of the term. The dip in the most recent years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the latest years.

All 3 definitions, chronological · 1936–1950

  1. 1936·299 U.S. 123 - United States v. Wood[p25]· cited 911×
    ORIGINAL

    not a technical conception. It is a state of mind. For the ascertainment of this mental attitude of appropriate indifference, the Constitution lays down no particular tests and procedure is not chained to any ancient and artificial formula.

  2. Impartiality is not a technical conception. It is a state of mind. For the ascertainment of this mental attitude of appropriate indifference, the Constitution lays down no particular tests and procedure is not chained to any ancient and artificial formula.