Cordell Pearson, et al. v. Afton Callahan

Decided January 21, 2009. Samuel A. Alito Jr. delivered the opinion of the Court.

Docket 07-751 · 555 U.S. 223 (2009) · Cited 13,928 times

We don’t yet publish a summary of this opinion — read the official text below for the Court’s holding and reasoning.

How the Justices voted

Decided 9–0.

“Concurring” means agreeing with the outcome; any split shown is the Court’s judgment, not each Justice’s reasoning. Source: the Supreme Court Database (Spaeth et al.), Washington University.

Precedents cited

Supreme Court decisions this opinion relies on, ordered by how often it cites each. Cases in our collection link through; others are named.

• Payne v. Tennessee · 501 U.S. 808 (1991)
• Strickland v. Washington · 466 U.S. 668 (1984)
• Anderson v. Creighton · 483 U.S. 635 (1987)
• United States v. Leon · 468 U.S. 897 (1984)
• Wilson v. Layne · 526 U.S. 603 (1999)
• Harlow v. Fitzgerald · 457 U.S. 800 (1982)
• Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Federal Bureau of Narcotics · 403 U.S. 388 (1971)
• Scott v. Harris · 550 U.S. 372 (2007)
• Mitchell v. Forsyth · 472 U.S. 511 (1985)
• County of Sacramento v. Lewis · 523 U.S. 833 (1998)
• Crawford v. Washington · 541 U.S. 36 (2004)
• Hope v. Pelzer · 536 U.S. 730 (2002)
• Butz v. Economou · 438 U.S. 478 (1978)
• Hunter v. Bryant · 502 U.S. 224 (1991)
• Ashwander v. Tennessee Valley Authority · 297 U.S. 288 (1936)
• Brosseau v. Haugen · 543 U.S. 194 (2004)
• United States v. Gaudin · 515 U.S. 506 (1995)
• Illinois Brick Co. v. Illinois · 431 U.S. 720 (1977)
• Groh v. Ramirez · 540 U.S. 551 (2004)
• Georgia v. Randolph · 547 U.S. 103 (2006)
• Spector Motor Service, Inc. v. McLaughlin · 323 U.S. 101 (1944)
• Morse v. Frederick · 551 U.S. 393 (2007)

Cited by

Later Supreme Court opinions in our collection that cite this case.

• Plumhoff v. Rickard · 572 U.S. 765 (2014)
• City and County of San Francisco v. Sheehan · 575 U.S. 600 (2015)
• Kimble v. Marvel Entertainment, LLC · 576 U.S. 466 (2015)
• WesternGeco LLC v. ION Geophysical Corp. · 585 U.S. 407 (2018)
• Reichle v. Howards · 566 U.S. 658 (2012)
• Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission · 558 U.S. 310 (2010)
• Tolan v. Cotton · 572 U.S. 650 (2014)
• Mullenix v. Luna · 577 U.S. 7 (2015)
• Ziglar v. Abbasi · 582 U.S. 120 (2017)
• White v. Pauly · 580 U.S. 73 (2017)
• Kisor v. Wilkie · 588 U.S. 558 (2019)
• Stanton v. Sims · 571 U.S. 3 (2013)
• Wood v. Moss · 572 U.S. 744 (2014)
• Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization · 597 U.S. 215 (2022)
• Michigan v. Bay Mills Indian Community · 572 U.S. 782 (2014)
• Hernandez v. Mesa · 582 U.S. 548 (2017)
• Gamble v. United States · 587 U.S. 678 (2019)
• Franchise Tax Bd. of Cal. v. Hyatt · 587 U.S. 230 (2019)
• Ashcroft v. Iqbal · 556 U.S. 662 (2009)
• Messerschmidt v. Millender · 565 U.S. 535 (2012)
• Ramos v. Louisiana · 590 U.S. 83 (2020)
• Montejo v. Louisiana · 556 U.S. 778 (2009)
• Filarsky v. Delia · 566 U.S. 377 (2012)
• Janus v. State, County, and Municipal Employees · 585 U.S. 878 (2018)
• Safford Unified School District 1 v. Redding · 557 U.S. 364 (2009)
• South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. · 585 U.S. 162 (2018)
• City of Tahlequah v. Bond · 595 U.S. 9 (2021)

Official text

Read the official opinion (U.S. Reports, govinfo.gov)

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Source: the U.S. Reports via govinfo.gov; authoring Justice and vote lineup from the Supreme Court Database (Washington University). Citation count from the Free Law Project’s CourtListener bulk data. Data last verified 2026-07-03. Informational only; verify against the primary source before relying. Not a consumer report (FCRA).