Cannon v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

3 federal appellate · 4 district · 32 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 56 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““The word is never used in its' first [archaic] meaning' in a criminal statute; and its second meaning is that to which its use in this statute has relation. The context in which it is- found, and the manifest evils which gave rise to the special enactments in regard to ‘cohabitation,’ require that the word should have the meaning which we have assigned to it. Bigamy and polygamy might fail of proof for want of direct evidence of any marriage; but cohabitation with more than one woman, in the sense proved in this case, was susceptible of the proof here given; and it was such offense as was here proved that section 3 of the act was intended to reach, — the exhibition of all the indicia of a marriage, a household, and a family, twice repeated.” 116 U. S. at pages 74, 75, 6 S. Ct. at pages 288, 289, 29 L. Ed. 561 .”

   1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. State v. Barlow

2. “An Act to punish and prevent the practice of polygamy in the Territories of the United States and other places, and disapproving and annulling certain Acts of the legislative Assembly of the Territory of Utah,”

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