Backun v. United States’s Empirical Analysis
112 F.2d 635 · 1940
Citation profile
34 federal appellate · 3 district · 6 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 55 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 2015 · most notably United States v. Falcone (1940), Direct Sales Co. v. United States (1943)
34 federal appellate · 3 district · 6 state decisions
Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.
Relationships
Applies 18 U.S.C. § 550
Relies on United States v. Falcone · State v. Scott · Rudner v. United States · Zito v. United States · Borgia v. United States
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 55 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
““ * * * those who make a profit by furnishing to criminals, whether by sale or otherwise, the means to carry on their nefarious undertakings aid them just as truly as if ' they were actual partners with them, having a stake in the fruits of their enterprise. To say that the sale of goods is a normally lawful transaction is beside the point. The seller may not ignore the purpose for which the purchase is made if he is advised of that purpose, or wash his hands of the aid that he has given the perpetrator of a felony by the plea that he has merely made a sale of merchandise. One who sells a gun to another knowing that he is buying it to commit a murder, would hardly escape conviction as an accessory to the murder by showing that he received full price for the gun; and no difference in principle can be drawn between such a case and any other case of a seller who knows that the purchaser intends to use the goods which he is purchasing in the commission of felony. In any such case, not only does the act of the seller assist in the commission of the felony, but his will assents to its commission, since he could refuse to give the assistance by refusing to make the sale. This is the view taken of the matter in a number of well considered cases in the federal courts. Pattis v. United States, 9 Cir., 17 F.2d 562 ; Vukich v. United States, 9 Cir., 28 F.2d 666 , 669; Borgia v. United States, 9 Cir., 78 F.2d 550 , 555; Anstess v. United States, 7 Cir., 22 F.2d 594 ; Hubinger Co. v. Unite”
5 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority““ * * * His general statement as to value, under such circumstances, was not of a sufficiently substantial character to take the ease to the jury as involving the statutory amount, in the face of the specific lower valuations placed upon the stolen articles by their owners.””
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
How this case has been treated — in progress
Whether each later court followed, distinguished, criticized, or overruled this decision. The treatment classification (task #35) runs highest-cited cases first and lights up here as it reaches this one.