Swearingen v. United States’s Empirical Analysis

Citation profile

94 federal appellate · 30 district · 36 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 240 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.

1. ““Assuming that it was within the province of the judge to determine whether the publication in question was obscene, lewd and lascivious, within the meaning of the statute, we do not -agree with the court below in thinking that the language and tenor of this newspaper article brought it within such meaning. The offense aimed at, in that portion of the statute we are now considering, was the use of the mails to circulate or deliver matter to corrupt the morals of the people. The words ‘obscene,’ ‘lewd,’ and ‘lascivious,’ as used in the statute, signify that form of immorality which has relation to sexual impurity, and have the same meaning as is given them at common law in prosecutions for obscene libel. As the statute is highly penal, it should not be held to embrace language unless it is fairly within its letter and spirit. “Referring to this newspaper, article, as found in the record, it is undeniable that its language is exceedingly coarse and vulgar, and, as applied to an individual person, plainly libelous. But we cannot perceive in it anything of a lewd, lascivious and obscene tendency, calculated to corrupt and debauch the mind and morals of those into whose hands it might fall.””

   9 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the majority
   e.g. Dysart v. United States · United States v. Limehouse

2. ““Every obscene, lewd, or lascivious, and every filthy book, pamphlet, picture, paper, letter, writing, print, or other publication of an indecent character * * * is hereby declared to be nonmailable matter and shall not be conveyed in the mails or delivered, from any post office, or by any letter carrier. Whoever shall knowingly deposit, .or cause to be deposited for mailing or delivery, anything declared by this section to be nonmailable * * * shall be fined,” etc.”

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

3. ““This black-hearted coward is known to every decent man,, woman, and child in the community as a liar, perjurer, and slanderer, who would sell a mother’s honor with less hesitancy and for much less silver than Judas betrayed the Saviour, and who would pimp and fatten on a sister's shame with as much unction as a buzzard gluts in carrion. He is a contemptible scoundrel and political blackleg of the lowest cut. * * * He has been known as the companion of negro strumpets and has reveled in lowest debauches. * * * He is lower, meaner, filthier, rottener than the rottenest strumpet that prowls the streets by night.””

   1 later decision quote this exact passage
   e.g. United States v. Davidson