In re Fair’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

8 federal appellate · 5 district · 1 state decisions

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 21 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. “In deciding this case, I do not mean to say that the warrant which Mr. Kiefer issued was a lawful warrant, nor that the proceedings under it were proper proceedings. I do not mean to say that the petitioners were lawfully discharging their official duties in what they did. In my opinion, the warrant itself was improvidently and erroneously issued, and the proceedings were all ill-advised, and conducted with bad judgment. But where an officer, from excess of zeal or misinformation, or lack of good judgment in the performance of what he conceives to be his duties as an officer, in fact transcends his authority, and invades the rights of individuals, he is answerable to the government or power under whose appointment he is acting, and may also lay himself liable to answer to a private individual who is injured or oppressed by his action; yet where there is no criminal intent on his part he does not become liable to answer to the criminal process of a different government. With our complex system of government, state and national, we would be in an intolerable condition if the state could put in force its criminal laws to discipline United States officers for the manner in which they discharge their duties. Or, take it the other way, if the government of the United States should prosecute as criminals sheriffs and other ministerial officers, justices of the peace, and judges of superior courts for errors of judgment, or ignorance, causing blunders in the discharge of their duties”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Clifton v. Cox

2. “The evidence in this case shows that petitioners acted entirely without malice; that the conditions existing at the place and time of the shooting were such as to cause an honest belief on their part that Morgan would, in all probability, effect his escape unless disabled; that they did not shoot with a purpose of killing, but only to disable. I am mindful of the rule of law that in a habeas corpus proceeding the court will not examine the evidence for the purpose of determining whether the party should be pronounced guilty or innocent of the offense for which he is imprisoned; yet in a case of this character it is not only proper, but necessary, for the court to determine whether the parties acted wantonly and with criminal intent, or whether their acts, though wrongful, were errors of judgment only. If they acted wantonly, with a criminal intent, then they were not acting within the scope of the authority conferred by the laws of the United States. On the other hand, if they acted without any criminal intent, but in an honest belief that they were only discharging the duties of a soldier, then their offense, if offense it was, was not against the laws of the state, and in such case the state has no jurisdiction.”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Clifton v. Cox

3. ““By this it is not meant to assert that because a person is an officer or agent of the federal government he is thereby excepted out from the jurisdiction of the state or the binding force of its laws. The mere fact that when the acts done by him were done he was an officer of the United States, charged with certain duties to that government, will not afford him immunity from prosecution under the laws of the state. Nor will the mere fact that he claims that the acts done were within the lina of his official duty afford him protection, if the acts' are such as to show that the claimed immunity is a mere subterfuge, and that under no fair consideration of his official duty could he have assumed that he was acting in his official capacity when the acts complained of were done by him.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Lipsett