United States v. Watkins’s Empirical Analysis
179 F.3d 489 · 1999
Citation profile
27 federal appellate · 5 state decisions
How this case has been cited
Cited by 60 later decisions — most recently February 2025 · most notably United States v. Carpenter (2004), United States v. Abboud (2006)
27 federal appellate · 5 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. § 3553 · 18 U.S.C. § 3742
Relies on United States v. Leon · Brown v. Illinois · Whiteley v. Warden, Wyoming State Penitentiary · National Union Fire Insurance v. Helfand · Raphan 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 60 citing decisions cite the case generally; a passage count includes only decisions quoting that exact language verbatim.
“the defendant committed the offense while suffering from a significantly reduced mental capacity. However, the court may not depart below the applicable guideline range if (1) the significantly reduced mental capacity was caused by the voluntary use of drugs or other intoxicants ....”
2 later decisions quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“Even if the finding were clearly erroneous, the district court's failure to depart downward still would not be appealable [,] ... as long as the guideline range was properly computed, the district court was not unaware of its discretion to depart from the guideline range, and the sentence was not imposed in violation of law or as a result of an incorrect application of the guidelines....”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence“A district court’s failure to depart from the Guidelines range is not cognizable on appeal under 18 U.S.C. § 3742 (a) when the district court properly computes the Guidelines range, imposes a sentence that is not illegal or did not result from an incorrect application of the Guidelines range, and is not unaware that it had discretion to depart from the Guidelines range.”
1 later decision quote this exact passage · from the concurrence
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.