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primary effect

Definitions from Case Law · United States Supreme Court

Definitions from Case Law

From 403 U.S. 672 - Tilton v. Richardson · 1971Most cited · 1,027 citing opinions

Establishment Clause

The crucial question is not whether some benefit accrues to a religious institution as a consequence of the legislative program, but whether its principal or primary effect advances religion.

How often courts cite the case defining “primary effect”

1970198019902000201020202030363

Court decisions citing the opinion that defined “primary effect” — 1,023 in all, by decade. Counts are citations to the defining case 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.