United States v. Curtis’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

27 federal appellate · 15 district · 4 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 62 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““So that the underlying question is whether the notary public, whose commission is from the state, was, at the respective dates of the oaths taken by Curtis, authorized by the laws of the United States to administer such oaths. This question we are constrained tb answer in the negative. We are not aware of any act of Congress which gave such authority to notaries public in the different states at the several dates given in the indictment. The Assistant Attorney General insists that such authority may be found in section 1778 of the Revised Statutes, which declares: ‘In all cases in which, under the laws of the United States, oaths or acknowledgments may now be taken or made before any justice of the peace of any state or territory, or in the District of Columbia, they may hereafter be also taken or made by or before any, notary public duly appointed in any state, district, or territory, or any of the commissioners of the Circuit Courts, and, when certified under the hand and official seal of such notary or commissioner, shall have the same force and effect as if taken or made by or before such justice of the peace.’ The authority of the notary to administer these oaths to Curtis cannot be derived from that section, unless at the dates in question they could, under the laws of the United States, have been taken before justices of the peace in Missouri. But the latter officers had no such authority by any federal statute to which our attention has been called, or which we are a”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Garcelon · United States v. Schallinger Produce Co.

2. “in any case in which a law of the United States authorizes an oath to be administered ....”

   2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. United States v. Manion · United States v. Holroyd

3. ““It is fundamental in the law of criminal procedure that an oath before one who has no legal authority to administer oaths of a public nature, or before one who, although authorized to administer some kind of oaths, but not the one which is brought in question, cannot amount to perjmy at common law, or subject the party taking it to prosecution for the statutory offense of willfully false swear ing. * * * But the statute does mean that the oath must be permitted or required, by at least the laws of the United States, and be administered by some tribunal, officer, or person authorized by such laws to administer oaths' in respect of the particular matters to which it relates.””

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